Another really out there film from another visionary director. Like all of Alejandro Jodorowsky's films, El Topo caused a stir on its release. Film critic Gary Arnold (wrongly) claimed that "there's not enough art to justify the sickening reality of Jodorowsky's artistic method." In other words, turn back if you are easily offended. El Topo is a movie of dwarves, freaks, bloody slaughter, mystical gurus and self-immolating martyrs. Oh, and an awful lot of bees. It opens with the main character, El Topo (played by Jodorowsky himself), riding on horseback in the desert with his naked son. They stop in a seemingly random spot and Topo demands that his son bury what is likely the only picture that he has of his mother as part of his ascent into manhood. And then things get weirder. We won't bore you with a full synopsis here, especially since we could hardly do it justice. But within the trippy and often controversial imagery is a place that you'll now be quite familiar with if you've already watched the other films on this list. A place where the mind begins to melt a little and something sublime touches our collective soul.
Eric Day co-hosts the Murderville Podcast at www.welcometomurderville.com
Give it a listen. Five minutes. Maybe you'll dig it. Maybe you'll hate it. But at least you'll have tried something new.
