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Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Watch Movies Online: El Topo

By Mitchell Calhoun

El Topo, by Alexandro Jodorowsky, is perhaps one of the strangest, most beautiful, and most bizarre western films ever made, if not the most bizarre film ever created period. The next time you're in the mood to watch movies online, if you want something a little different (well, actually, quite a bit different) from the norm, give El Topo a try.

The movie follows a black clad gunfighter named El Topo, beginning with him and his son on a quest for revenge. The mother has been killed, and the father has the son bury a photograph of the mother as a symbolic end to his childhood, and a beginning to his adulthood. The two then trek through the desert to find the man responsible for her death.

After exacting their revenge, the father abandons the boy to the church before going back into the desert with his new lover. The woman insists that he kill the top four killers in the desert before she can love him, as such that she can truly be with the strongest man. They wander the sands for at least a decade trying to seek out all four of these men.

Each of the four killers is a fascinating character. One is attended to by a pair of handicapped people. One with no legs, who sits on the shoulders of one with no arms. Another of the killers is an old man who deflects bullets with a butterfly net, while another is a strong man who is capable of building incredibly delicate, ornate objects out of toothpicks.

Eventually, El Topo must search for redemption after his girlfriend betrays him, putting him in a coma. He stays in a mountain for several years and wakes up to don a priestly robe and shave his head and become a saint. He hopes to repent for his sinful past, but must first find the capacity for forgiveness within his own soul.

Topo eventually reunites with his adult son, and learns that putting him in the church's hands did not, in fact, spare him a life of difficulties, and that challenges and violence will hound you no matter who you are or what your background.

The movie is deeply rooted in religious symbolism. There are so many different religions on display here, Buddhism, Catholicism, Judaism, that it really becomes its own thing, almost its own religion in a sense. Whatever it is, it's all Jodorowsky.

El Topo carries an incredibly surreal, eerie feeling. It will shock you, enlighten you, entertain you, educate you and repulse you. It's a story about love and hate, revenge and redemption, and while the trailer may have been taking it a bit far when it declared that the movie will be the single greatest experience you ever have in your life, the fact remains that it's a darn great film.

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