El Topo (1970)
Genre: Western
Duration: 125 minuten
Alternative title: The Mole
Country:
Mexico
Directed by: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Stars: Alejandro Jodorowsky, Brontis Jodorowsky and José Legarreta
IMDb score:
7,2 (33.177)
Releasedate: 18 December 1970
El Topo plot
"The definitive cult spaghetti western"
A black-clad man walks through the desert with his son. They arrive at a village whose inhabitants have been brutally murdered. After a dying man tells them who was responsible for the massacre, they track down the bandits and kill them. Then the black-clad man falls in love with a woman he has just rescued from these bandits. But she only wants to be his wife when he kills four big gunslingers.
Actors and actresses
El Topo
Son of El Topo
Dying Man
Bandit 1
Bandit 2
The Colonel
Armless Man
Marah / The Woman
Desconocida
Hijo del Topo
Reviews & comments
Black Math
-
- 5430 messages
- 1753 votes
After La Danza de la Realidad and The Holy Mountain I had expectations of this, but this is a bit of a disappointment.
Sure, all the elements from those other films are here too: a surreal and bizarre plot, a lot of symbolism, the crippled and deformed. And yet it works much less here. It's difficult to put your finger on it completely, but in my opinion the audiovisually renders the events much less creative. Surrealism is here mainly in the story, less in the audiovisual elaboration. In terms of music, those other movies were also very hypnotic in my memory, and the desert-shaped environment doesn't help either.
Interesting to have seen once, but at a certain point it gets very tedious. It's nice that John Lennon thought this movie was worth watching, because it allowed The Holy Mountain, which I liked a lot better, to be made, but I really think this is the least Jodorowsky I've seen. 2*.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Leland Palmer
-
- 23787 messages
- 4902 votes
I already found 'The Holy Mountain' slightly disappointing and I expected that this 'El Topo' would suit me much better. That was disgusting. That Jodorowsky can get me in the tree first as far as I'm concerned.
The movie starts well. A warm atmosphere, where Jodorowsky, as a derailed Bee Gee, rides around on a horse with his son and goes from one bizarre adventure to the next. That can be nice, but I really miss everything that a symbolic film like this needs. I was not carried away, the soundtrack is laughably bad, the story is getting more and more tedious and I don't like Jodorowsky as an actor either.
Weird scenes and totally nonsensical, idiotic developments. Boring and uninteresting. I really expected a very nice movie here, but Jodorowsky disappoints (again). I couldn't do anything with this. A pity.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Film Pegasus (moderator films)
-
- 31191 messages
- 5473 votes
A mix between Fellini and the spaghetti western, but polished too rough. I also see this purely as a western and the bar is certainly very high around that time. Even more prefer the cheesy Bud Spencer and Terence Hill westerns. As if you put a single on the record player and the sound is way too sharp. So not my thing.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Corporate & Media
Realtimes Network
Innovatieweg 20C
7007 CD, Doetinchem, Netherlands
+31(315)-764002
