El Topo
| El Topo | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| Starring |
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| Music by | Alejandro Jodorowsky |
| Cinematography | Raphael Corkidi |
| Edited by | Federico Landeros |
| Distributed by | ABKCO Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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124 minutes |
| Country | Mexico |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | $1 million |
El Topo (English translation: "The Mole") is a 1970 Mexican western drama film written, scored, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy, the film is about the eponymous character – a violent, black-clad gunfighter – and his quest for enlightenment.
The film takes place in two parts. The first half resembles a western; albeit a surreal one. The second is a love story of redemption and rebirth.
The first half opens with El Topo (played by Jodorowsky himself) traveling through a desert on horseback with his naked young son, Hijo. They come across a town whose inhabitants have been slaughtered, and El Topo hunts down and kills the perpetrators and their leader, a fat balding Colonel. El Topo abandons his son to the monks of the settlement's mission and rides off with a woman whom the Colonel had kept as a slave. El Topo names the woman Mara, and she convinces him to defeat four great gun masters to become the greatest gunman in the land. Each gun master represents a particular religion or philosophy, and El Topo learns from each of them before instigating a duel. El Topo is victorious each time, not through superior skill but through trickery or luck.
After the first duel, a black-clad woman with a male voice finds the couple and guides them to the remaining gun masters. As he kills each master, El Topo has increasing doubts about his mission, but Mara persuades him to continue. Having killed all four, El Topo is ridden with guilt, destroys his own gun and revisits the places where he killed those masters, finding their graves swarming with bees. The unnamed woman confronts El Topo and shoots him multiple times in the manner of stigmata. Mara then betrays him and rides off with the woman, while El Topo collapses and is carried away by a group of dwarves and mutants.
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Wikipedia