Reseñas de la crítica

El Topo is from another time, and while what was done then still resonates and fascinates, the constructive controversy of an inexplicable cult-film like this, however creative and astonishing it is, is something less assured — certainly less bankable — in today’s cinematic climate.

Most surprising thing about this famous cult flick is the way it complicates its hero, starting as expert gunman and silent avenger with the film in spaghetti-Western mode, then becoming more unsympathetic as it morphs into spiritual journey.

Jodorowsky's targets are not hard to spot, nor are they in any way unique or nuanced, but the way that he approaches them is utterly singular to his brand of structured storytelling and makes for often hypnotic, slow-burning sequences and scenes of fiery outrage. Rarely does Jodorowsky set up a shot that doesn't invite perusal, and the director's ideas concerning performance are nothing if not interesting...

Inventively composed, beautifully photographed and boasting lakes of blood, shoe fetish action, mystical iconography and dwarf pantomime – often in the same scene – it's by turns mesmerising, grotesque, surreal, satirical, rousing and impenetrable.

Playing deity in front of and behind the camera, the director uses film as a direct pipe into his own mind, and the bursting valise of ideas, images, and sounds that results is a veritable blur of ridiculous and sublime (and ridiculous-sublime) moments that defy ordinary readings while inviting (demanding, really) audience involvement via active interpretation.

Repeat the mantra "far fucking out" all you like but to fully appreciate the thing that is El Topo you'd have to have been there 36 years ago, in the wee hours of the morning, stoned out of your gourd, in a run-down theater on lower Eighth Avenue. Even then, I assure you,Alejandro Jodorowsky's magnum opus was less kabbalah than cowabunga...

If cinema's highest, most proper calling is as the ultimate repository for images, dreams, and mad, unkempt visions, then El Topo could well be argued as the most quintessentially cinematic film ever made... If, of course, you're one who prefers a general sense of narrative cohesion, more allusive than overt employment of spiritual imagery and narratives, and a little less batshit crazy, then El Topo could be amongst the least pleasurable experiences you'll ever have in a theater.

Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1970 midnight cult hit from Mexico, which made quite a few waves in its time, is an extravagant hodgepodge of hand-me-down surrealism, mysticism, Italian westerns, theater of cruelty, and Buñuel—more enjoyable for its unending string of outrages than for its capacity to make coherent sense.

Many of these tales are metaphysical gags in the manner of the Marx Brothers... Their style is often considered frivolous but is one of deliberate anarchy, which Artaud called their "disintegration of the real by poetry." The same sense of humor, rooted at the cruel basis of laughter, is present in El Topo. Its humor attacks reality, creating a comedy that provokes laughter in order to overcome horror—a comedy that becomes a cult of salvation.