Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

As someone not too interested in religious symbolism, I did not enjoy this film. It's sparse and minimalist and very little happens in 2 hours. There's not much offered to the viewer other than a very brief story that appears to be some kind of metaphor pertaining to religion. The meaning isn't obvious either, so you're just watching some weird, meaningless stuff unless you put thought into it and try to come up with your own explanation. It's not particularly visually beautiful or engaging in other ways.I can see how this could be an interesting film for people who are interested in Christianity and enjoy these kinds of exercises, although I suspect this is a film that receives a lot of spurious praise from people who like it just because it's so out there or because they think that's the cool thing to do. It's trendy in certain circles.

I am a great admirer of directors/scriptwriters who understand religious works before they make films that refer to religion (e.g., Kieslowsky, Tarkovsky, Mallick, Reygadas, Bunuel, Bergman, Dreyer, etc.). Jodorowsky, in this film, proved that he neither knew Christian scriptures nor Buddhist philosophy. The only detail that showed some scholarship was the discussion on the Jewish name Marah. Jodorowsky was trying to be very erudite in calling sections of the film (a) genesis (b) the prophets (c) the psalms and (d) the apocalypse. While the first and the last section have some remote connection to the Bible, the screenplay proves Jodorowsky's total lack of knowledge to either parody or discuss the similarities with the narratives of his screenplay. What did Jodowsky's psalms have that related to/or referred even obliquely to the Psalms of David?His knowledge of the Oriental scriptures is equally muddled--one savant seems to be fascinated with Egyptology, building pyramids with sticks and having a man with no arms carrying another without any feet. Some have called the work surrealist--it would be that only if Jodorowsky had showed a glimpse of scholarship beyond the etymology of Marah. Even blood splattered walls do not look authentic, nor do visuals of pigs rushing out of an empty place of worship. This is immature cinema--Hollywood's "Freaks" was far superior in content and so was Bunuel's surrealist works that criticized organized religion.

This movie (!?) reminded me of Monty Python, although it is not as nearly funny and clever. Apparently, in those days any number of shoots collected and somehow put together has been regarded as "movie". And got "cult" status instantly. This approach still has faithful followers nowadays (see - or don't - The Orphan Killer, paranormal Acticity, Blair Witch and such). And the less sense it makes, it is considered more "artistic". Like, acting is a shame, editing is something not worth bothering, and directing means (probably) explaining to the participants what they should do (or otherwise, if they do not feel like it) over a large amount of alcohol. Don't get me wrong: this movie (!?) has its moments and is a material worth remaking (by Terry Gilliam, for instance) but this... Jesus! Surreal? Introspective? Thoughtful? My ass! Plain stupid. Forget about it. It's that simple.

I usually love the avant-garde, the offbeat, the strange and the surreal. Being a fan of David Lynch, Takashi Miike and Terry Gilliam, bring me the weird and bizarre – but do not bring me "El Topo". This midnite movie cult classic is one of those films I had been told was a "must see", though I knew it was not that easy. Most viewers either love or hate the movie with no in between. Jodorowsky delivered as writer/director/actor/composer a mixed bag of metaphor, allegory, imagery, spaghetti western, fantasy, horror and utter gore, weighed down with Buddhism and Christianity, and just about anything else from the philosophical and metaphysical kitchen sink. The aforementioned is fine, but when the final destination for the audience is nowhere, I can understand the passionate hatred from those who despise the film. Of its lovers, many told me it was "trippy" and they simply liked it because of that.The narrative, however, is all over the place as El Topo (The Mole) travels the Mexican desert to face and kill The Four Masters of the Desert. Do they represent the Four Horsemen, the Four Winds, the Four Elements? It is anybody's guess. The movie is so loaded with imagery upon imagery it is as if Jodorowsky was purposefully stirring the pot just to keep people guessing. Maybe as lovers of the film try to decipher the layers of meaning, Jodorowsky is laughing somewhere. This film did not satisfy me on any level because the result was a pile of primordial ooze that did not have time to gel into something coherent. Granted, I was intrigued by Topo's Zen-like transformation, especially when he worked so diligently to save the deformed cripples, but this was not enough to justify what came beforehand.The movie is a circus sideshow with bits and pieces that are at times amusing while disgusting on other occasions. In this vein, Jodorowsky delivered the grotesque on a tortilla. At times both ridiculous and frightening, he shocks the audience with a stream of phantasmagorical scenes that lead only to the end credits and nothing more. Whatever Jodorowsky was searching for, it was for him and him alone. The movie was self- indulgent and left me amazingly disappointed.I can sit and discuss Lynch's disturbing "Eraserhead", Miike's over-the-top "Visitor Q" and Gilliam's Orwellian "Brasil", but Jodorowsky's work leads to a dead end because it is utterly nonsensical.