Three of the visionary director Alejandro Jodorowsky's most celebrated yet rarely seen films - El Topo, Holy Mountain and Fando & Lis. All have been digitally restored and remastered, under the close supervision of the director himself, and presented along with an array of superb extra features, including a rare 1957 short, .. Read more
| Starring | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
|---|---|
| Director | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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Three of the visionary director Alejandro Jodorowsky's most celebrated yet rarely seen films - El Topo, Holy Mountain and Fando & Lis. All have been digitally restored and remastered, under the close supervision of the director himself, and presented along with an array of superb extra features, including a rare 1957 short, original trailers and deleted scenes.
El Topo (1970): The gunfighter El Topo ('The Mole') and his young son ride through a desert to a village, whose inhabitants have been massacred. Bandits are nearby, torturing and killing the survivors. El Topo rescues a woman (Mara), who leads him on a mission to find and defeat the four master gunmen of the desert.
Holy Mountain (1973): An epic hallucination filled with weirdness and wonder. The story centres on a thief who joins a group of people who plan to storm The Holy Mountain and steal the secret of eternal life...
Fando & Lis (1968): Fando and his partially paralyzed lover Lis search for the mythical city of Tar. Based on Jodorowsky's memories of a play by surrealist Fernando Arrabal.
| Starring | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
|---|---|
| Director | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| Studio | PALISADES TARTAN |
| Run time | DVD: 5 hrs 34 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: Spanish |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 14 May 2007 Production year: 2007 |
| Format | DVD |
Or you can rent each disc individually:
Fando and his partially paralyzed lover Lis search for the mythical city of Tar. Based on Jodorowsky's memorie...
A bizarre, ultra-violent, allegorical Western, "El Topo" is set in two halves that have widely been compared ...
An epic hallucination filled with weirdness and wonder. The story centres on a thief who joins a group of peop...
90 minute documentary by Louis Mouchet featuring Jodorowsky....
This collection of short films from the extreme arthouse director was in my view boring and very arty i couldent get to grips with the content and didiny see the disc to the end
'The Holy Mountain' is a masterpiece, simple as. If you watch it with a closed mind, or you are not a spiritual person, you'll probably think it is artw*nk. I urge you to watch it again, but this time with the subtitles of Jodorowsky's commentary. It will explain everything, from the jewellery to the symbolism to the dwarf etc etc etc. And then you will realise you've watched something special.
I watched the film immediately afterwards with the subtitles as I knew it was special but some of the symbolism I had missed. I love it so much I'm now going to buy it so I can watch it again and again... It is a life affirming movie, and quite beautiful.
Yes, there are some scenes that animal-lovers will find hard to watch, but they are all essential (again, read the subs). Jodorowsky himself was someone very spiritual and in touch with nature and the concept of reincarnation. It is important to consider this at all times.
He plays the alchemist who brings the Christ character (a thief) on a spiritual journey. In real life, over six months, he brought unknown actors - hardly any of whom had experimented with psychodelic drugs - on the same spiritual journey, and for this reason the film was actually shot chronologically, so that the journey would be intense for his 'actors' and they too would find enlightenment. I did not want this film to end, and felt very close to the story.
'Fando & Lis' is nowhere near as good, but it's interesting none the less. I didn't listen to the commentary - not sure there was one, I wish I had checked before I sent it back - but it's much more 'accessible' so you don't really need one. In a way, the story reminded me of Fellini, and the girl certainly has something of Gelsomina about her. Again, quite a surreal tale, about a man carrying a paraplegic woman around Tar. It's not as good, in fact it's rather poor by comparison.
'El Topo' is a film I didn't 'get' so much when I first saw it, and I was a little disappointed. However, I will certainly give it another viewing with a more open mind.