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For the Puerto Rican musician, see Antonio Caban Vale. Antonio Cabán Vale (aka " El Topo " (born November 22, 1942 in Moca Puerto Rico) - Composer Guitarist and
El Topo

Theatrical release poster.
Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Produced by Juan López Moctezuma
Moshe Rosemberg
Roberto Viskin
Written by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Starring Alejandro Jodorowsky
Brontis Jodorowsky
Mara Lorenzio
David Silva
Paula Romo
Music by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Nacho Méndez
Cinematography Raphael Corkidi
Release date(s) December 18, 1970 U. Alejandro Jodorowsky (ɑːlɛˈxɑːndrɒ jɒdɒˈrɒvskiː (born February 7 1929 in Tocopilla, Chile, of a Jewish Russian (Ukranian immigrant family David Josué Jiménez Silva (born January 8, 1986 in Arguineguin, Las Palmas) is a Spanish footballer who plays as Events 218 BC - Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal 's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the The year 1970 in film involved some significant events Events February 11 - The film The Magic Christian S. release
Running time 125 min
Language Spanish
Budget $400,000 (estimated)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

El Topo (The Mole) is a 1970 Mexican allegorical, cult western movie and underground film, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. The year 1970 in film involved some significant events Events February 11 - The film The Magic Christian The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. An allegory (from αλλος allos "other" and el αγορευειν agoreuein "to speak in public" is a figurative mode of representation A cult film is a Film that has acquired a highly devoted but relatively small group of fans. The Western is a fiction Genre seen in Film, Television, Radio, Literature, Painting and other Visual arts. An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style genre or financing Alejandro Jodorowsky (ɑːlɛˈxɑːndrɒ jɒdɒˈrɒvskiː (born February 7 1929 in Tocopilla, Chile, of a Jewish Russian (Ukranian immigrant family Characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy, the film is about the eponymous character - a violent, black-clad gunfighter - and his quest for enlightenment. Dwarfism ( is a medical condition in humans characterized by extreme small size A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth "Symbolic" redirects here For other uses see Symbolism (disambiguation and Symbolic (disambiguation. Eastern philosophy refers very broadly to the various philosophies of Asia, including Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, Persian For many years the film could only be seen at midnight screenings, in arthouses and via video bootlegs until its official DVD release on May 1st, 2007. 'Copyright infringement' (or copyright violation) is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by Copyright law in a manner that violates DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is

Contents

Plot

The movie takes place in two parts. The first half, in an unnamed spaghetti western inspired desert, opens with El Topo and his son riding a horse. Spaghetti Western, also known in some countries in mainland Europe as the Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western He tells his son that he is now seven years old, and must bury his first toy and a picture of his mother in the sand. The movie starts as El Topo plays his flute.

Part 1

During their journey, they find a lifeless town with all the inhabitants killed and mutilated (including the farm animals). El Topo avenges the town by hunting down and killing the outlaws who butchered the townsfolk. They find out that the outlaws are under the command of a Colonel who has taken another small town with a monastery and its inhabitants as hostage. Colonel ( RP ˈkɜnəl GA ˈkɜrnəl is a Military rank of a Commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every country This article concerns the buildings occupied by monastics. For the life inside monasteries and its historical roots see Monasticism. El Topo rescues the town from the Colonel and his outlaws, only to abandon his son with the monks. He rides off with a woman whom the Colonel and his outlaws had kept captive as a slave, and names her Mara after the bitter water they later drink from a pond. Naomi ( נָעֳמִי "Pleasantagreeable" Standard Hebrew Naʿomi, Tiberian Hebrew Noʿŏmî) is Ruth 's mother-in-law Mara convinces El Topo to defeat the four great gun masters to become the greatest gunman in the land. He duels each of them at Mara's prodding, and during each duel, El Topo either cheats or gets lucky.

The first duel is with a blind man with the voice of a woman, dressed in only a thong and guarded by a man with no legs riding a man with no arms. The man claims to be impervious to bullets, stating that he offers them "no resistance", and even demonstrates this ability. El Topo slays the man by setting a man hole trap for the master so that he loses concentration, and Mara kills the remaining two half-men. An unnamed woman with a male voice finds the couple and offers to lead them to the next gunslinger. The mysterious female gives Mara a mirror, which she becomes enamored with. The gunslinger is frustrated by her vanity and shoots the mirror from her hands. After desperately trying to reform the mirror, she quits and gives him the shards, which he places in his pocket.

The second gunslinger is some sort of a traveling gypsy, accompanied by his mother and a lion. After initially beating El Topo in a duel, the large man shows El Topo how he came to be so powerful. He tells El Topo that he strengthened his fingers by working with copper and later on by creating delicate objects like toothpick pyramids. He also tells El Topo that the reason he is alive and powerful is because he has his mother whom he loves and takes care of, while El Topo, unlike him, is all alone in this world, only living to destroy others. Afterwards the man decides to give the black gunslinger one more chance. While walking away, El Topo places Mara's mirror shards on the ground. The massive man's mother, whom the man is obsessed with, gives El Topo his revolver and then steps on the mirror shards. Concerned with his mother, the brute forgets about his duel with El Topo. The man in black then shoots the gypsy gunslinger in the back of his head.

The third gun master is found at a rabbit farm. The rabbit shepherd is rather unconcerned with the man in black and his mission, and tells him that as soon as he arrived at the rabbit farm, the rabbits began to die. They both shared a moment of peace together by playing music to each other, because music can tell a person's character more than word the master says. They then compared to each other the way they shoot by shooting at crows. El Topo's bullet hit the crow's head while the master shot the heart of the bird. Afterward, they start the duel, and the master shoots El Topo in the chest knocking him down. However, El Topo stands up, laughing, unfazed from the bullet. He then shoots the defenseless rabbit farmer, since his gun can only fire one bullet at a time. El Topo then pulls a copper plate from his coat—a gift from the previous gun master. Although El Topo won the duel by cheating, he starts to question his own morality. In an act of respect for the master, he makes a grave for him out of the dead rabbits.

After more traveling through the desert, El Topo comes to the last, and most spartan, gun master. The man wears only a small loin cloth and his ghost gray hair comes down to his waist. Next to him is a butterfly net. El Topo wishes to duel him, but the man says that he has no pistol, having traded it away years ago for the net. The two then get in a fistfight where El Topo is unable to connect a single blow. Frustrated, El Topo attempts to shoot the man, who catches the bullets in his butterfly net and throws them back at the man in black. Realizing that he finally was beaten as he couldn't kill the last master, El Topo gives up in frustration. In tears, the master then asks El Topo if his life is really worth taking. The master then takes the pistol away from El Topo and kills himself in a demonstration of the unimportance of life, declaring, "You have lost!"

El Topo, ridden with the guilt of cheating, destroys his own gun and revisits the places where he killed those masters. The rabbit master's grave is turned into flames, the gypsy master and his mother are entombed with a large toothpick pyramid around them, and the blind master's grave is covered with honey combs, while his two servants' grave has become a shrub.

The unnamed woman then confronts El Topo and shoots him multiple times, giving him a series of gunshot wounds on his hands and feet, much like the wounds of Christ. Frustrated with his failure, and perhaps in love with the woman stranger, Mara then betrays and shoots him. They both ride off together, leaving El Topo to his own fate, similar to when El Topo abandoned his son. It is implied that these two women will destroy each other one day [1]. The first half ends with the gunslinger being taken away by a band of strange, deformed people.

Part 2

The second half of the movie takes place years later, after El Topo is rescued by a band of deformed outcasts, saving him from death. The outcasts take El Topo to their underground community, where he, comatose, meditates on the four lessons for many years. In Medicine, a coma (from the Greek koma, meaning deep sleep is a profound state of Unconsciousness. Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned "thinking" mind into a deeper state of relaxation or awareness When he awakes, he is 'born again,' and shaves off all his beard and hair and wears light, simple clothing (similar to Buddhist clothing). Buddhism is a family of beliefs and practices He decides to help the outcasts, and, together with a dwarven girl who looked after him while he was comatose, goes on a quest to free them from their subterranean prison.

However, it turns out that the citizens of the neighbouring town are corrupted cultists who enjoy killing for bloodsport, treating slaves as animals and indulging in sexual pleasures. El Topo is by now starting to doubt whether it was a good idea to escape the mountain; however, since he promised the underground people to help them, he decides to do various odd jobs in town -- from pantomiming to cleaning storefronts -- to buy dynamite.

At the same time, a mysterious monk arrives in town, who, in short order, becomes the new priest for the failing local Christian church (which had been replaced by the town's own pagan religion). However this new priest carries a gun and even uses live ammunition during the towns scam Russian roulette sermon (in which the local "priest" told the mysterious monk that the bullet is a blank). Ammunition, often referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which Russian roulette (Русская рулетка is a potentially lethal Game of chance in which participants place a single round in a Revolver, spin the


While earning money for various low-level jobs, El Topo and the dwarven girl are forced at gun point to have sexual intercourse in front of a crowd of drunken cultists. This is when the dwarven girl reveals that she is in love with El Topo. The dwarven girl is ashamed of herself, however, and El Topo convinces her that she is beautiful. To show that he really appreciates her, he decides to marry her, heading to the town church. It is revealed that the new priest of the church is actually none other than El Topo's own son. In a fit of rage, his son threatens to kill El Topo; however, he was stopped by the dwarven girl because she needed El Topo to save her people.

The son of El Topo, dressed in black similar to his father in the past, decides to spare El Topo's life until he finishes digging the exit for the underground people. However, he will follow El Topo's every step. For a while, the life of these three is working hard and living together happily as a family for once. Some time passes, and the dwarven girl is shown to be pregnant.

With the help of his dwarf girlfriend and his son, El Topo digs an exit out of the cave. Dwarfism ( is a medical condition in humans characterized by extreme small size Just as the exit appears, the underground people start to run out of the mountain. To which El-Topo ominously cries "they are not ready for you". The son of El Topo also could not kill his father/master, and decides to let it go. Sadly, just as the underground people near the town, the cultists are waiting for them with guns. El Topo helplessly witnesses his community being murdered by the cultists and is shot by the cultists himself. In a fit rage, as if El Topo was possessed by God, he ignores the pain from several fatal bullet wounds and proceeds to take a rifle and start to kill all of the cultists in the town, men and women, old and young. Some townspeople begin to abandon the town en masse including the slaves. After everybody in town is killed, El Topo takes an oil lamp and then pours oil on himself and sets himself on fire, an act reflecting the self-immolation of Buddhist monks and others that were protesting the Vietnam War, which was still going on at the time of the filming. An oil is a substance that is in a viscous Liquid state ( "oily") at ambient temperatures or slightly warmer and is This is an article on the ritualistic suicide practice For the record company see Self Immolation. The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia

El Topo's son and girlfriend survive the ordeal and made a grave for his remains, which becomes a beehive full of honey, as the first gun master's grave became. A beehive is in a general sense an enclosed structure in which some species of Honey bees (genus Apis) live and raise their young Honey is a sweet and Viscous fluid produced by Honey bees (and some other species and derived from the nectar of Flowers According to the Since his dwarf girlfriend gives birth to their child at the same time as his death, the ending may lead some to believe that the child is the reincarnation of the gunslinger-turned-monk (borrowing the Buddhism idea). The Son of El Topo, now dressed in his father's garments, the dwarf and the child ride off on a horse in the same fashion that the Son of El Topo and El Topo did in the beginning of the film.

Trivia

Sequel

Since at least the early 1990s, Jodorowsky has been attempting to make a sequel to El Topo. In 1996, a teaser poster was released[7], but apparently, no shooting was actually done. The original working title, The Sons Of El Topo (Los hijos del Topo), was changed (sometime between 1996 and 2002) to Abelcaín, due to disputes over ownership with Allen Klein. Allen Klein (born December 18, 1931) is a controversial American businessman and record label executive Additionally, the name of the character El Topo (The Mole) was changed to 'El Toro' (The Bull). Jodorowsky said of this, "I am now working on a Franco-Canadian production called Abelcaín, which is a new version of the same project. The character El Topo has become El Toro. A single slash added on letter P changed a subterranean rat into a charging bull. For a true artist, difficulties become opportunities. And clouds become solid present. "

A 2002 article in The Guardian stated that Marilyn Manson was attached to star in the film, but that Jodorowsky was having great difficulty raising money for the project[8]. The Guardian (until 1959 The Manchester Guardian) is a British Newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Brian Hugh Warner (born January 5, 1969) better known by his Stage name Marilyn Manson, is an American Musician and No information has been publicly released about the project since then, and as of 2008, it appears to have been put on hold indefinitely for lack of funds. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ Topo, El (1970) - Trivia
  2. ^ 'I am not normal' | Interviews | Guardian Unlimited Film
  3. ^ www.TheGline.com: DVD of the Week: (12-02-02): El Topo
  4. ^ The Jodorowsky Collection - DVD - Movie Mail UK
  5. ^ Wii Interview: Suda 51 - ComputerAndVideoGames.com
  6. ^ Hyper Insomaniac - High Moon on Zudacomics.com
  7. ^ The Sons Of El Topo
  8. ^ 'I am not normal' | Interviews | Guardian Unlimited Film
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