I think the best way to discuss El Topo is to first mention that you're not going to find much else out there like it. I can't really make a list of films out there like it … It's an art house western, and I don't mean like Even Cowgirls Get the Blues-kind of art house western. I mean waaaaaaaaay off the deep end of art house… and pretty brutal as a western as well.

I also had to watch this film twice to process it. There is a lot to digest, and well, I would have a discussion with a friend of mine about if, very briefly, and one of the things that came up is that the film is pretentious. I don't know if that is a negative thing for a piece of art to compliment its audience by saying “you should know this all before coming here, and if you're lost because of it, I don't care.” Then again, I'm the kind of person who enjoys feeling lost.

The story starts with the main character, played by the director Alejandro Jodorowsky, riding around the desert with a naked boy. He's a gun slinger, and I'm not sure if he's a “good guy” or a “bad guy” but he's wearing all black… He comes across various bandits, who he kills, freeing a woman whom he then rapes. Afterward, she falls in love with him, and asks him to kill the four master gunmen of the desert.

Soooooo, of course he says yes to this, and begins his task of killing each one of these sage like gunmen, each of which dispense some type of zen idea on the art of dueling with pistols. The first is blind and has 2 servants; one is a man with no legs, who rides on a man with no arms. This is all pre-CGI, so real amputees were used (In fact, this film has a lot of amputees and people with deformities in it). All the while, he is followed by a woman in black that the gunmen refuse to fight. When he gets to the last gunman, the guy kills himself and declares our hero “the loser.” The woman in black then steals his girl and shoots him a few times, leaving him for dead in the middle of desert - where the first half of the film takes place. The scenery is amazing and the Mexican desert is worth watching this film for alone.

This is the kind of first half of a film that I don't want to give too much away, because it is worth watching. The film is very much a time-piece of the 'human potential' and 'philosophical ideas' of the 70's. Kind of like the way that books like "Jonathan Livingston Seagull” or “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” could only be published during that time this film is much the same way. There is no way that this film could be made today, in part because it is in fact, too artistic. It doesn't use weird or unique camera tricks to tell a run-of-the-mill story, it tells you a tale of some very strange characters. It is full of half cocked symbolism: the naked boy in the beginning could easily be interpreted as his inner child and the woman in black as our main charters feminine self, but there are even weirder images later in the film - everything from crucified lambs to sex with midgets.

I like this film but it's not for everyone, that's without question. It's very different and if you like things that are linear or that don't require much in the department of stretching your imagination or pushing the boundaries of your thought, I'd say steer clear of this film. In fact, I'd definitely say that it speaks to a very small audience of people that love the weird, and isn't really made for human consumption on a bulk level. It's both very beautiful and violent; sexy and grotesque; as well as crude and elegant all at the same time.

I know I said this film is a time-piece, and that is definitely it's biggest flaw, but in a way it's also the thing that makes it worth watching. The film, with all the brutal images in it - such as rape, or for that matter forced sex with midgets - also manages to retain a certain idea of freedom in the limitless potential for the perfecting of the human sprit, even if it is to become perfect by means of killing others in gunfights.