Alexandro Jodorowsky made that underground western 'El Topo' that did good midnight biz at a yank lingo house, but it did not ride into riper money pastures when Allan Klein took it for regular distribution. Now Klein has given Jodorowsky bigger backing for this new pic, an out-and-out occult trip showing Jodorowsky now as guru.
He shot most of it in Mexico befire having trouble due to some violent scenes with church fugures. the film has all of Jodorowsky's excesses in visual high-jinks and way out symbols that finally lead to Jodorowsky himself taking nine disciples to the Holy Mountain, which supposedly has nine wise men who have learned the secret of immortality, to wrest from them the secret.
Before all that there is a chirist-like figure, covered in flies, crucified by laughing Mexican children and helped by a legless and armless man. He wanders into a wild Latino city where soldiers make love to tourists, a circus shows the conquest of Mexico via using toads dressed as conquistadors, and Romans again crucify the christ character only to have his body used to make effigies by the church.
But then he meets a great teacher, Jodorowsky of course, who initiates him into a way of harnessing his body powers and then others who represent fashions, war tools, and other symbols of power to get them all to train under him and seek out the Holy Mountain.
After all the carrying on, Jodorowsky finally has the Holy Mountain harboring empty costumed figures and demands the camera to move back to show that man must find everything within himself.
But there is plenty of elaborate inventiveness to bring home this homily. Jodorowsky may be part charlatan but does have an unusual flair for visual fests of violent symbolism that seem too contrived to achieve the instinctual or even intellectual undertones aimed at.
It is spoken in English and has plush physical and technical aspects. Jodorowsky is becoming a gadfly of the fest and film setup and with more backing he can bring more appeal to his pix if not the downright way-out drive that 'El Topo' had.