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Movies / On DVD / El Topo
El Topo

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El Topo (1970)

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Reviews Counted:31

Fresh:23

Rotten:8

Average Rating:6.7/10

Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins

Genre: Westerns

Synopsis: With its combination of surreal imagery and assault on the ideals of the Western, EL TOPO may appear to be equal parts Luis Buñuel and Sam Peckinpah, but it's all Alejandro Jodorowsky. In addition... With its combination of surreal imagery and assault on the ideals of the Western, EL TOPO may appear to be equal parts Luis Buñuel and Sam Peckinpah, but it's all Alejandro Jodorowsky. In addition to his directing duties, Jodorowsky contributes to the film's writing, music, editing, and costumes, as well as starring as El Topo ("the Mole"). El Topo journeys across the desert to battle a group of gunfighters, but it's not the plot that's important in this midnight movie classic. The masterful blend of brutal violence and beautiful images make Jodorowsky's film essential viewing for anyone looking beyond the offerings of the megaplex. Decades have passed since its first screening, but EL TOPO hasn't lost any of its ability to shock and amaze. [More]

Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Starring: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Screenwriter: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Composer: Alejandro Jodorowsky

[See More Credits]

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Release:

May 1, 2007

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for El Topo

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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While I truly do doubt that modern viewer will have much use for Jodorowsky's dated spiritual philosophy, the style with wich he expresses that philosophy is often quite exciting.

Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy | comment Comment
04/21/08
Tim Brayton
Tim Brayton
Antagony & Ecstasy

A dated counterculture goulash long hyped as art by a blank generation desperate for something different.

Full Review Source: Orlando Weekly | comment Comment
07/14/07
John Thomason
John Thomason
Orlando Weekly

As perplexing as large parts of it are, the film certainly isn't boring. And it's kind of fun trying to figure out what it's all supposed to mean.

Full Review Source: Deseret News, Salt Lake City | comment Comment
07/13/07
Jeff Vice
Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City

a mystic trip through political, religious and philosophical terrains, gunning down all normative notions of what the western - or indeed Western civilisation - is supposed to be.

Full Review Source: Eye for Film | comment Comment
07/04/07
Anton Bitel
Anton Bitel
Eye for Film

For the adventurous viewer, El Topo is a bizarre, colorful, unforgettable experience.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
06/14/07
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Violent, visionary, vital.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
05/02/07
David Parkinson
David Parkinson
Empire Magazine

haunting and haunted, flitting at the edges of Jodorowsky's masculine fantasy

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
05/01/07
Chris Cabin
Chris Cabin
Filmcritic.com

Without the aid of mind-expanding narcotics though, El Topo can't help looking laughably ramshackle, the combination of bad dubbing, shoddy camerawork and over-the-top performances making it pretty much unwatchable by modern standards.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/10/07
Neil Smith
Neil Smith
BBC

One things for sure, they certainly don't make 'em like this any more. Nor, I suspect, would anyone want them to.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
04/07/07
Andrew Pulver
Andrew Pulver
Guardian [UK]

A dreary, protracted exercise in sadomasochism.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
03/16/07
Kevin Thomas
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's steeped in blood and sex and dream imagery and weird music and imparts a sense of heat and wonder and even revulsion in a way that always feels artful and exact.

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
03/16/07
Shawn Levy
Shawn Levy
Oregonian

The movie’s lure is sensual and unflagging; that’s what makes it, for all its arty absurdity, the last great movie of the 1960s.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
02/10/07
Joshua Rothkopf
Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out New York

This is gutbucket Luis Buñuel , surrealism on the cheap, and it hasn't dated well -- the blood is patently fake and the gunshots are dubbed.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
01/26/07
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

You may find it a tiresome, macho relic -- or a ragtag circus wandering through a fantasy realm part Treasure of the Sierra Madre, part Tolkien's Middle-earth.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
12/12/06
J. Hoberman
J. Hoberman
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

El Topo would be part of the revolutionary, post-'60s movement of Antonio das Mortes and The Last Movie if its private mythology didn't belong so obviously to its maker's acid subconscious.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
12/11/06
Fernando F. Croce
Fernando F. Croce
Slant Magazine

A mass of indecipherable symbols combined with obvious self-indulgence on the part of a writer-director-star Alexandro Jodorowsky make what could have been an entertaining western into one of the more pretentious films ever made.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
08/29/06
TV Guide's Movie Guide

With style constantly contradicting content, and the prevailing mood redolent of egotism and misogyny, it leaves one the feeling of having waded through a full-blown fantasy where even the self-degradation emerges as just another form of narcissism.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
01/26/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out

No review available.

comment Comment
06/17/05
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

El Topo is a good deal more interesting and a good deal less hung up on its own pretensions than all my most intelligent friends had led me to believe.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment 1 Comment
05/09/05
Roger Greenspun
Roger Greenspun
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Everything about this mystical trip smacks of narcissism, even the scenes where the filmmaker is lowering himself in acts of self-deprecation.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
04/05/05
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
 
 
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