El Topo (1970)

Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Starring Alejandro Jodorowsky, Robert John, Mara Lorenzio, Brontis Jodorowsky, David Silva.

An enigmatic gunfighter clad in black leather roams the desert with his young, naked son, shoots almost everyone in sight, suffers stigmata-like wounds, gets reborn, reunites with his now-adult son who has become a monk determined to destroy his cultist father…or something like that (it’s hard to dig through the mountainous molehill of symbols to expose the roots). A movie of such stunning and surreal images, disconnected episodes of waking curiosity, startling violence, and lasting imagination, it has enough in the tank to jolt the viewer into focus whenever it starts to drift toward screwy religious tomfoolery (either all too obvious or all too obtuse) or tedious repetition. As such, the acid Western ambles through an alien landscape somewhere between the Old Testament and the Old West, and the cohesive meaning feels beyond clear interpretation—only theory and/or madness. Because I did not enjoy it, I give it a recommendation with reservations, but I did admire it, and it’s not quite like anything I’ve seen before or since. Alfonso Arau has a small role as a bandit.

70/100