El Topo [2 Discs]

Overview

A highly symbolic, metaphysical take on the Western, writer-director Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo centers around the titular character, a skilled gunfighter (also portrayed by Jodorowsky) whose enigmatic personality has mystical overtones. The story begins after he and his son encounter the remnants of a massacred village, and El Topo seeks vengeance on the bandits responsible. After killing the bandits, he forms a relationship with the bandit leader's concubine. Leaving his son in the care of a band of monks, he joins her in a mission against the Masters, the desert's four greatest gunfighters. El Topo wins these battles, but does so through questionable tactics; afterwards he is abandoned in the desert, wounded and alone. A lapse of several years follows, after which El Topo awakens amongst an underground community of strangely deformed people. He agrees to help them dig a tunnel from their home to the surface world, initiating a whole new series of ordeals -- including the eventual return of his son. Jodorowsky freely mixes elements of Christian, Taoist, Ancient Greek, and Wild West mythology in this intricate, stylized, and extremely violent film, which developed a cult following in the 1970s through a series of midnight screenings.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/16/2021
UPC:	0038781132894
Original Release:	1970
Rating:	NR
Source:	Abkco
Region Code:	1
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	2:04:00
Sales rank:	7,311

Special Features

New 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative approved by Alejandro Jodorowsky; Disc 1 - 1:85:1 film with Spanish 5.1 audio, Spanish 2.0 audio and Spanish Audio Commentary; Disc 2 - 1:37:1 film with Spanish 5.1 audio, Spanish 2.0 audio, Spanish Audio Commentary and English dub audio; Newly translated English, Spanish and French subtitles; Audio Commentary by Alejandro Jodorowsky; Jodorowsky Remembers El Topo, new interview filmed in Paris; Newly filmed introduction with Richard Peña, Professor of Film Studies at Columbia University; A Conversation with The Son of El Topo, a newly filmed, extentive interview with Brontis Jodorowsky who stars in El Topo; The Father of Midnight Movies, an archival interview with Jodorowsky filmed in 2007; Original Trailer; Image Galleries

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Alexandro Jodorowsky	El Topo,Son of El Topo,Composer
Mara Lorenzio	Mara
David Silva	The Colonel,Boxer No.2
Paula Romo	Woman in Black
Jacqueline Luis	Small Woman
Hector Martinez	First Master
Juan Jose Gurrola	Second Master
Victor Fosado	Third Master
Agustin Isunza	Fourth Master
Bertha Lomeli	Second Master's Mother
Robert John	Brontis as a Man
Jose Antonio Alcarz	Sheriff
Felipe Diazgarza	Deputy
Julian de Meriche	Priest
Alfonso Arau	Bandit No.1
Jose Luis Fernandez	Bandit No.2
Alf Junco	Bandit No.3
Gerardo Cepeda	Bandit No.4
Rene Barrera	Bandit No.5
Rene Alis	Bandit No.6
Federico Gonzales	Bandit No.7,Second Prisoner
Vincente Lara	Bandit No.8
Pablo Leder	Monk No.1
Giuliano Girini Sasseroli	Monk No.2
Cristian Merkel	Monk No.3
Aldo Grumelli	Monk No.4
Ignacio Martinez Espana	Armless Man
Eliseo Gardea Saucedo	Legless Man
Carlos Lavenant	Executioner No.1
Eliseo Pereda	Executioner No.2,Child
Pablo Marichal	Slave
Beatriz Beltran Lobo	First Woman
Carmen Lamadrid	Second Woman
Pepita Gonzalez	Third Woman
Cecilia Leger	Fourth Woman
Elvira Agosti	Fifth Woman
Antonio Alvarez	First Prisoner
Victor Manuel Osorio	Third Prisoner
Jose Perez Bustos	Fourth Prisoner
Eduardo Danel	Fifth Prisoner
Alvaro Garcia	Sixth Prisoner,Man With Carrot
Marcos E. Contreras	Boxer No.1
Valerie Tremblay	Woman In Church
Jose Luis Gonzalez de Leon	Man In Church
Francisco Gonzalez Salazar	Shopkeeper
Federico González	El Gordo
José Antonio Alcaraz	Comisario
Nacho Mendez	Composer

Technical Credits

Alejandro Jodorowsky

Moshe Rosemberg	Producer
Roberto Viskin	Producer
Alejandro Jodorowsky	Director,Screenwriter
Allen Klein	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Virtually out of circulation from the mid-1970s into the 1990s, performance artist/provocateur Alejandro Jodorowsky's second film El Topo claims a place in film history as the first "midnight movie." Determined to bypass traditional distribution after his experience with his first film Fando and Lis (1968), Jodorowsky sought another route for his surreal western. Described by critics as Sergio Leone crossed with Luis Buñuel, Sam Peckinpah, and Jean-Luc Godard, and infused with eastern and western religious iconography, El Topo premiered at New York's Elgin Theater at midnight in December 1970 and began playing at the witching hour every evening. With almost no publicity, El Topo quickly became a cult sensation, as Jodorowsky's trippy, ultra-violent screen quest for "sainthood" deeply appealed to the Elgin's hipster, counterculture crowd (especially since the management tolerated pot-smoking). Picked up for distribution six months into its Elgin run on the recommendation of fan John Lennon, El Topo divided critics over whether it was a timely avant-garde masterpiece or reactionary faux art pandering to its acolytes' worst impulses. Regardless, El Topo all but vanished by 1975 in the wake of the distributor's stipulation that it play only with Jodorowsky's less-admired Holy Mountain (1973), with its rare screenings raising the question of whether El Topo could have succeeded outside of its cultural moment.