El Topo

El Topo, a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky released in 1970. I first saw this bizarre movie in a downtown Philadelphia theater in 1972. I had been home on leave from my ship and had a few hours to kill before my bus left for Norfolk VA. I went to the movies and saw this. I would see it again a few years later at the TLA Cinema and then eventually a couple more times over the years.

This was one of a series of underground and midnight cult movies I saw in the 70's. Well, after all, I was a film studies major in college during that time. El Topo fit right in with those movies. Jodorowsky would call his film "a quest for sainthood" and he had a taste for outrage and scandal. He also played the main character in the film. It was a surreally strange Western mixed with horror and comedy layered on Eastern mysticism that evolved into a psychedelic messianic revenge fantasy.

It is interesting that when John Lennon saw this film in 1971 he had his manager buy the distributions rights in order to get more people to see the film.