El Topo

El Topo is a fil I had read and heard a lot about and decided to see someday. I found it available for rent on Amazon Prime and viewed it after 35 years of curiousity. There was a problem I discovered right away. The movie was neither dubbed NOR SUBTITLED although it was specified to be subtitled in English. I speak and understand very little Spanish, ie I can read a menu and exchange very basic pleasantries and thats about it. This could have been a real problem, if the storyline had not been so simple and sketchy that my partner and I could both follow it without understanding dialog. The fact that I have read a lot about El Topo already also helped me understand what was going on. iBut it was SUPPOSED TO BE SUBTITLED and there were some talkier parts where I would really have liked to have had those subtitles, to know what was being said in the talkier part. Otherwise I wasnt overly impressed. The protagonist looks like a Berkeley drug casualty for the first two-thirds of the film and you could see how the ending was going to go ten minutes before it got there. Its all photographed beautifully and the surrealistic visual aspects are startling and fascinating, but I liked Senor Jodorowskis other films, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN and SANTA SANGRE, much better than this one.

Were always a good time. I missed this one and had to watch it. John Waters has the honor of the my original first Midnight Movie with Pink Flamingos and I have the ability to appreciate those cult movies from the seventies. I have seen Hairspray so many times its almost memorized. Ill never forget John Waters. Divine is a Saint. RIP Glen.

A much deeper story than most may understand. Beautiful.

This is an art film and is renowned as a part of film history. Its very strange, spastic, and atmospheric. Movie deals with themes over direct story telling. Now the elephant in the room. The beginning of the movie has a naked kid in it. In a non sexual context, i guess its suppose to represent innocence and vulnerability. Regardless, it was offputting.

Oddest western I have ever seen.

I saw this film in a theater in Europe, in the 1970s and its classification as an Acid Western, portraying a counter culture dream through drug induced hallucinations, summed it up well. Alejandro Jodorowsky stalked critics of this film with admissions of criminal behavior and later denials. Hollywood did well by not allowing his Dune to be filmed.