(originally published in the Scene-June 2007) THE RESURRECTION OF ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY.
Long ago, in the (pre) DVD days of home video leisure there was this wonderfully suspect little sub-culture of the bootleg video tape. I discovered this world in the form of a thick, amply xeroxed catalog ordered from the back pages of Fangoria magazine. It featured a wealth of the finest in multi-cultural sleaze, monster, splatter and otherwise undefinable product that, for a plethora of reasons, was never destined for a day in the mainstream sun. Sure, it may have taken a bit to adjust to the often less then stellar picture quality accompanied by frequent poor sound, this and the common lack of subtitles on the many non-English films. But I soon grew addicted to the exotic goodies wrapped in reused brown paper packaging that I awaited endlessly at my mother's mailbox for. I built myself a fine little library of oddities that I was convinced would never rear their heads in any other format but this.
Oh how I have been proven wrong.
In a way it brings a fleeting form of nostalgia to cast those worn old bootlegs into trash can oblivion. Their third or fourth generation images exuded a charming delirium that went lengths to enhance the peculiarities that fueled these types of films. But with new technology comes new promise.
Slowly but steadily, the arrival of DVD (followed by Internet downloading) has opened wide many new niches in relation to so-called 'obscure' cinema. Smaller companies have taken up the crusade of breathing new life into long left for dead movies. They've been cleaned, repaired and supplemented in more ways then could ever have been fathomed by those dingy, brown paper bootleggers. Many of the films focused on in this very article began life before my loopy eyes as bootlegs.
It is in bootleg land that I first discovered the crazed majesty of a certain Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Jodorowsky is an enigmatic smorgasbord of cultural influences and artistic output. He has traveled the world as a mime, playwright, comic book writer, tarot card reader and, most significantly, filmmaker. His work is of the quality not quantity fashion, he has only produced six features and one short in his entire career. Two of said films, 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain', were the pride of my bootleg collection, I watched and rewatched them thinning the tapes slowly to the breaking point. The time has come to finally upgrade with the release of not only these two films, but a full six disc box set devoted to the filmic universe of this startling and unique talent.
I suppose I should first clarify one thing, the title, 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' (Anchor Bay Entertainment/Abkco Films) stands as a tad misleading. This set does not contain the complete Jodorowsky filmography. In truth, it covers the first half through the span of four films and two soundtracks as well as some bonus treats. Also I strongly recommend that the films be watched in order of when they were produced. I believe that Jodorowsky only got bigger, better and braver as he continued on his sublime cinematic tangent. To aid in this, I will break the set down disc by disc and give my two cent 'fringe' opinion on each flick.
We kick things off with 'La Cravate', a half hour short that served as Jodorowsky's introduction to the film medium. The piece is essentially a mime shtick involving two male characters (one an artist and the other a muscle man) and their dealings with a young lady who switches heads as an occupation. It is silent, short and rather whimsical with more than a passing resemblance to the likes of Chaplain or Keaton. This really serves as an intro for the beast of imagination that would son develop in later work. The story goes that this piece was stolen by the lead actress and thought lost for the better part of fifty years. Somehow it was uncovered in an attic in Germany and polished up for reintroduction via this set. Interesting stuff but keep in mind we're just getting started.
In 1968 Jodorowsky unveiled his debut feature 'Fando y Lis' to chaotic response in his then home of Mexico. Freely adapted (solely from memory, no script) from a play by sometime collaborator Fernando Arrabel and realized in high contrast black and white, the film feels like an aborted Felliniesque bastard flailing itself across the screen. What transpires is less a story than a feverish phantasmagoria committed to the celluloid real (something that holds true for the majority of Jodorowsky's work). A confused young man and his crippled lady are hell bent on finding the Eden like city of Tar. They shamble around treacherous quarries and brave all manner of revelers and deviants who appear at random along their path. The whole of this experience is initially tough to take, but upon additional inspection I am able to appreciate the sheer purity of form and lack of consideration for cliche at large here. It would be oh so easy to dismiss this as artsy fartsy dreck and leave it at that. I prefer to return to a difficult film sometimes and see if I can't dig deeper (especially when its creator progresses with successive works, as is the case here) and maybe uncover its secrets and surprises. After all, no significant film is ever meant to be viewed just once.
Next up is the film that initially put Alejandro Jodorowsky's name into the consciousness of multitudes. 'El Topo' arrived at the early tip of the seventies to almost single handily usher in the 'midnight movie' phenomenon. It tells the tale of an Eastwood styled drifter who, with his naked son in tow, tracks and challenges numerous outlaws and mystics before undergoing a radical transformation/rebirth of his own. The movie both feeds on and reconstructs many of the conventions and ideologies of the era; the western, the 'beat' film, exploitation cinema and spiritual diatribe. The film eventually won favor from none other then outlaw, hippie, cultural mega-icon John Lennon. Fact is, Lennon dug 'El Topo' so much he hustled Beatles manager Allen Klein to procure the film for American distribution. This led to an alliance of both prosperous and catastrophic results. Never the less, it is the reason 'The Holy Mountain' got made.
'The Holy Mountain' is, from this critic's standpoint anyway, a watershed in the arena of fantastic film making. It is startling and amazing in so many ways it almost feels like sensory overload. Anyone with a taste for the imaginative and visionary in their art will find paradise within this picture's running time. The storyline has something to do with a petty street dreg (who more then passingly resembles the Catholic white man representation of Christ) who is taken under the tutelage of a character called 'The Alchemist' (fleshed out by Jodorowsky himself) and led on a quest for ultimate enlightenment....or some such hippie shit. Whatever, the so called story is beside the point. This is the mother of all head trips and I challenge any skeptic to walk away from this journey unscathed, there is just far too much to take in. This is the type of stuff that makes most folks' dreams seem lethargic by comparison. You got everything you need to overdose to in this mother; screaming amputee midgets, orgasm machines, reptiles dressed as conquistadors attacking each other, birds fluttering out of bullet wounds and much, much more! This is the peak of Jodorowsky as a film maker and I urge anyone interested in taking part in this fantastic box set, save this one for last as it is well worth the wait.
Sadly, after completing 'The Holy Mountain', Jodorowsky would enter into what would become a thirty odd year feud with Allen Klein over a more commercial project the producer had in mind. Jodorowsky flatly refused and Klein withdrew his most accomplished films from commercial exhibition. 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' languished in cinema purgatory for the duration of their spat. In the interim, Jodorowsky continued his maverick path come what may. He would begin work on an adaptation of Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi opus 'Dune'. This was to be a project that would have gathered a counter culture dream team together for a single ambitious extravaganza. The planned film was to star Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger and Orson Wells. It was to feature designs by H.R. Giger and a score featuring Pink Floyd. Oh the potential! Alas, the big shot money men got big time cold feet and the plug was pulled, only to be reinstated to unfortunate effect a decade later by Dino DeLaurentis and David Lynch. The Jodorowsky envisioning of 'Dune' remains one of the great unrealized projects in the history of film. Pity.
After this debacle, Jodorowsky would focus on various projects aside from cinema only to return in 1979 for another failure in the largely unseen (even by me) children's film 'Tusk'. This picture remains on the bootleg circuit in a French language only version. At any rate, Jodorowsky has since distanced himself from it.
Nearly nine more years would pass before the release of 'Santa Sangre'. The story of a once institutionalized boy and his long suffering, dismembered mother and the violence they inflict together is one of unsettling psychological power. The significant critical and theatrical attention leveled at this return to form must have seemed refreshing to a filmmaker who'd been separate from success for so long. 'Sangre' retains many of the visual tics of the director's notorious style while maintaining a largely straight forward narrative structure. Make no mistake though, this is no everyday movie. In one scene we follow a rather debauched night on the town with a posse of mental ward escapees which covers the spectrum from hookers to cocaine and so on. Now I don't want to give too much away here, like the best of Jodorowsky's works, this one subsists on surprise. It travels roads unexpected and finds many a unique (and sometimes horrid) wonder. The bad news is that this gem was left out of the new set due to ongoing litigation. The best bet is to track down an old copy in a dusty video store corner.
The same holds true for the next and final produced film from Jodorowsky to date.
'The Rainbow Thief' is another project that the directer now disowns. As he tells it he was hired by the producer to film his wife's script to the letter as a birthday gift for her. Thus Jodorowsky was given access to his biggest budget and name actors such as Peter O' Toole to shoot a light tale of an odd prince and a filthy beggar who become friends in a sewer. The resulting film swiftly died on all levels and stands as an unjust final note to an ingenious career.
Let's hope that the arrival of 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' makes that all go away. The set is a godsend to any discerning fanatic of the arts. It opens the door to a body of work that has gone mostly unseen for far too long, and has certainly never been this exquisitely presented. The films have all undergone transfer overhaul and the final product is top self. After countless times sitting through the barely passable quality of those damn bootlegs, these discs make the experience as fresh as if the films came straight from the lab. The set features commentary, set photos, two soundtracks ('El Topo', 'Holy Mountain'), deleted scenes, script excerpts and a full length documentary. This last item, the 86 minute 'La Constellation-Jodorowsky' from 1990 is an engrossing insight into the man's philosophies, inspirations and theories on everything from his childhood to the art of self discovery that is film making. It features lively interviews with the directer as well as admirers like Marcel Marceau and Peter Gabriel(!). I think only complaint I hold on the subject of this bountiful new set is the lack of any accompanying booklet/liner notes. Though that may be due to the forthcoming publication of 'Anarchy and Alchemy', a literary analysis of the man and his art by Ben Cobb. Expect that volume by the end of the summer. Do, however, try to check out 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' at your local media shack (i.e Best Buy, Exclusive Co.) and let it sink deep into your psyche.
For further info, you can web it up at, www.anchorbayentertainment.com
www.abkco.com
Hold on! Put that beer down you scumbag, I'm not done yet.
Here are some other hits and misses.
'Tideland'- A little girl gets lost in the wilderness of her own imagination following the back to back overdoses of her junkie parents. She finds solace in the company of talking doll heads and a local spastic who thinks he's a submarine captain. Oddly not as bizarre ass it sounds. In fact, the whole thing is a tad mundane in its quest to be eccentric and 'daring'. The latest offering from the once great Terry Gilliam, who continues to distance himself from the genius of 'Time Bandits' and 'Brazil'. Oh, and Jeff Bridges is in it.....sort of.
'Pan's Labyrinth'- Another little girl lost, only this time the result is one of the best fables (hell, movies!) of the year. Guillermo Del Toro puts himself one step closer to icon status with this rich, visually hypnotic tale of creaky ghouls and creepy men. Set in 1940's Spain at the height of fascism, the movie gracefully dances between vivid fantasy and cold, cruel reality. It propels its doe-eyed pre pubescent heroine into a race to change the fate of an alternate reality from certain doom to life affirming hope. A triumph of the imagination.
'Zodiac'- M.T.V. got nothing on this. David Fincher proves once and for all that he is beyond the A.D.D. of his music video past. Articulate and exacting, this is a major epic chronicling a rather dark chapter in our recent history. In the late 60's, the Bay area of Northern California is thrown into turmoil by a series of serial attacks accompanied by the media published taunts of the perpetrator himself. The movie also charts the repercussions that follow for years afterward as the Zodiac killer is never caught and simply buries himself into urban legend. Long, methodical and rewarding for the more focused movie goer.
Long ago, in the (pre) DVD days of home video leisure there was this wonderfully suspect little sub-culture of the bootleg video tape. I discovered this world in the form of a thick, amply xeroxed catalog ordered from the back pages of Fangoria magazine. It featured a wealth of the finest in multi-cultural sleaze, monster, splatter and otherwise undefinable product that, for a plethora of reasons, was never destined for a day in the mainstream sun. Sure, it may have taken a bit to adjust to the often less then stellar picture quality accompanied by frequent poor sound, this and the common lack of subtitles on the many non-English films. But I soon grew addicted to the exotic goodies wrapped in reused brown paper packaging that I awaited endlessly at my mother's mailbox for. I built myself a fine little library of oddities that I was convinced would never rear their heads in any other format but this.
Oh how I have been proven wrong.
In a way it brings a fleeting form of nostalgia to cast those worn old bootlegs into trash can oblivion. Their third or fourth generation images exuded a charming delirium that went lengths to enhance the peculiarities that fueled these types of films. But with new technology comes new promise.
Slowly but steadily, the arrival of DVD (followed by Internet downloading) has opened wide many new niches in relation to so-called 'obscure' cinema. Smaller companies have taken up the crusade of breathing new life into long left for dead movies. They've been cleaned, repaired and supplemented in more ways then could ever have been fathomed by those dingy, brown paper bootleggers. Many of the films focused on in this very article began life before my loopy eyes as bootlegs.
It is in bootleg land that I first discovered the crazed majesty of a certain Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Jodorowsky is an enigmatic smorgasbord of cultural influences and artistic output. He has traveled the world as a mime, playwright, comic book writer, tarot card reader and, most significantly, filmmaker. His work is of the quality not quantity fashion, he has only produced six features and one short in his entire career. Two of said films, 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain', were the pride of my bootleg collection, I watched and rewatched them thinning the tapes slowly to the breaking point. The time has come to finally upgrade with the release of not only these two films, but a full six disc box set devoted to the filmic universe of this startling and unique talent.
I suppose I should first clarify one thing, the title, 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' (Anchor Bay Entertainment/Abkco Films) stands as a tad misleading. This set does not contain the complete Jodorowsky filmography. In truth, it covers the first half through the span of four films and two soundtracks as well as some bonus treats. Also I strongly recommend that the films be watched in order of when they were produced. I believe that Jodorowsky only got bigger, better and braver as he continued on his sublime cinematic tangent. To aid in this, I will break the set down disc by disc and give my two cent 'fringe' opinion on each flick.
We kick things off with 'La Cravate', a half hour short that served as Jodorowsky's introduction to the film medium. The piece is essentially a mime shtick involving two male characters (one an artist and the other a muscle man) and their dealings with a young lady who switches heads as an occupation. It is silent, short and rather whimsical with more than a passing resemblance to the likes of Chaplain or Keaton. This really serves as an intro for the beast of imagination that would son develop in later work. The story goes that this piece was stolen by the lead actress and thought lost for the better part of fifty years. Somehow it was uncovered in an attic in Germany and polished up for reintroduction via this set. Interesting stuff but keep in mind we're just getting started.
In 1968 Jodorowsky unveiled his debut feature 'Fando y Lis' to chaotic response in his then home of Mexico. Freely adapted (solely from memory, no script) from a play by sometime collaborator Fernando Arrabel and realized in high contrast black and white, the film feels like an aborted Felliniesque bastard flailing itself across the screen. What transpires is less a story than a feverish phantasmagoria committed to the celluloid real (something that holds true for the majority of Jodorowsky's work). A confused young man and his crippled lady are hell bent on finding the Eden like city of Tar. They shamble around treacherous quarries and brave all manner of revelers and deviants who appear at random along their path. The whole of this experience is initially tough to take, but upon additional inspection I am able to appreciate the sheer purity of form and lack of consideration for cliche at large here. It would be oh so easy to dismiss this as artsy fartsy dreck and leave it at that. I prefer to return to a difficult film sometimes and see if I can't dig deeper (especially when its creator progresses with successive works, as is the case here) and maybe uncover its secrets and surprises. After all, no significant film is ever meant to be viewed just once.
Next up is the film that initially put Alejandro Jodorowsky's name into the consciousness of multitudes. 'El Topo' arrived at the early tip of the seventies to almost single handily usher in the 'midnight movie' phenomenon. It tells the tale of an Eastwood styled drifter who, with his naked son in tow, tracks and challenges numerous outlaws and mystics before undergoing a radical transformation/rebirth of his own. The movie both feeds on and reconstructs many of the conventions and ideologies of the era; the western, the 'beat' film, exploitation cinema and spiritual diatribe. The film eventually won favor from none other then outlaw, hippie, cultural mega-icon John Lennon. Fact is, Lennon dug 'El Topo' so much he hustled Beatles manager Allen Klein to procure the film for American distribution. This led to an alliance of both prosperous and catastrophic results. Never the less, it is the reason 'The Holy Mountain' got made.
'The Holy Mountain' is, from this critic's standpoint anyway, a watershed in the arena of fantastic film making. It is startling and amazing in so many ways it almost feels like sensory overload. Anyone with a taste for the imaginative and visionary in their art will find paradise within this picture's running time. The storyline has something to do with a petty street dreg (who more then passingly resembles the Catholic white man representation of Christ) who is taken under the tutelage of a character called 'The Alchemist' (fleshed out by Jodorowsky himself) and led on a quest for ultimate enlightenment....or some such hippie shit. Whatever, the so called story is beside the point. This is the mother of all head trips and I challenge any skeptic to walk away from this journey unscathed, there is just far too much to take in. This is the type of stuff that makes most folks' dreams seem lethargic by comparison. You got everything you need to overdose to in this mother; screaming amputee midgets, orgasm machines, reptiles dressed as conquistadors attacking each other, birds fluttering out of bullet wounds and much, much more! This is the peak of Jodorowsky as a film maker and I urge anyone interested in taking part in this fantastic box set, save this one for last as it is well worth the wait.
Sadly, after completing 'The Holy Mountain', Jodorowsky would enter into what would become a thirty odd year feud with Allen Klein over a more commercial project the producer had in mind. Jodorowsky flatly refused and Klein withdrew his most accomplished films from commercial exhibition. 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' languished in cinema purgatory for the duration of their spat. In the interim, Jodorowsky continued his maverick path come what may. He would begin work on an adaptation of Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi opus 'Dune'. This was to be a project that would have gathered a counter culture dream team together for a single ambitious extravaganza. The planned film was to star Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger and Orson Wells. It was to feature designs by H.R. Giger and a score featuring Pink Floyd. Oh the potential! Alas, the big shot money men got big time cold feet and the plug was pulled, only to be reinstated to unfortunate effect a decade later by Dino DeLaurentis and David Lynch. The Jodorowsky envisioning of 'Dune' remains one of the great unrealized projects in the history of film. Pity.
After this debacle, Jodorowsky would focus on various projects aside from cinema only to return in 1979 for another failure in the largely unseen (even by me) children's film 'Tusk'. This picture remains on the bootleg circuit in a French language only version. At any rate, Jodorowsky has since distanced himself from it.
Nearly nine more years would pass before the release of 'Santa Sangre'. The story of a once institutionalized boy and his long suffering, dismembered mother and the violence they inflict together is one of unsettling psychological power. The significant critical and theatrical attention leveled at this return to form must have seemed refreshing to a filmmaker who'd been separate from success for so long. 'Sangre' retains many of the visual tics of the director's notorious style while maintaining a largely straight forward narrative structure. Make no mistake though, this is no everyday movie. In one scene we follow a rather debauched night on the town with a posse of mental ward escapees which covers the spectrum from hookers to cocaine and so on. Now I don't want to give too much away here, like the best of Jodorowsky's works, this one subsists on surprise. It travels roads unexpected and finds many a unique (and sometimes horrid) wonder. The bad news is that this gem was left out of the new set due to ongoing litigation. The best bet is to track down an old copy in a dusty video store corner.
The same holds true for the next and final produced film from Jodorowsky to date.
'The Rainbow Thief' is another project that the directer now disowns. As he tells it he was hired by the producer to film his wife's script to the letter as a birthday gift for her. Thus Jodorowsky was given access to his biggest budget and name actors such as Peter O' Toole to shoot a light tale of an odd prince and a filthy beggar who become friends in a sewer. The resulting film swiftly died on all levels and stands as an unjust final note to an ingenious career.
Let's hope that the arrival of 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' makes that all go away. The set is a godsend to any discerning fanatic of the arts. It opens the door to a body of work that has gone mostly unseen for far too long, and has certainly never been this exquisitely presented. The films have all undergone transfer overhaul and the final product is top self. After countless times sitting through the barely passable quality of those damn bootlegs, these discs make the experience as fresh as if the films came straight from the lab. The set features commentary, set photos, two soundtracks ('El Topo', 'Holy Mountain'), deleted scenes, script excerpts and a full length documentary. This last item, the 86 minute 'La Constellation-Jodorowsky' from 1990 is an engrossing insight into the man's philosophies, inspirations and theories on everything from his childhood to the art of self discovery that is film making. It features lively interviews with the directer as well as admirers like Marcel Marceau and Peter Gabriel(!). I think only complaint I hold on the subject of this bountiful new set is the lack of any accompanying booklet/liner notes. Though that may be due to the forthcoming publication of 'Anarchy and Alchemy', a literary analysis of the man and his art by Ben Cobb. Expect that volume by the end of the summer. Do, however, try to check out 'The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky' at your local media shack (i.e Best Buy, Exclusive Co.) and let it sink deep into your psyche.
For further info, you can web it up at, www.anchorbayentertainment.com
www.abkco.com
Hold on! Put that beer down you scumbag, I'm not done yet.
Here are some other hits and misses.
'Tideland'- A little girl gets lost in the wilderness of her own imagination following the back to back overdoses of her junkie parents. She finds solace in the company of talking doll heads and a local spastic who thinks he's a submarine captain. Oddly not as bizarre ass it sounds. In fact, the whole thing is a tad mundane in its quest to be eccentric and 'daring'. The latest offering from the once great Terry Gilliam, who continues to distance himself from the genius of 'Time Bandits' and 'Brazil'. Oh, and Jeff Bridges is in it.....sort of.
'Pan's Labyrinth'- Another little girl lost, only this time the result is one of the best fables (hell, movies!) of the year. Guillermo Del Toro puts himself one step closer to icon status with this rich, visually hypnotic tale of creaky ghouls and creepy men. Set in 1940's Spain at the height of fascism, the movie gracefully dances between vivid fantasy and cold, cruel reality. It propels its doe-eyed pre pubescent heroine into a race to change the fate of an alternate reality from certain doom to life affirming hope. A triumph of the imagination.
'Zodiac'- M.T.V. got nothing on this. David Fincher proves once and for all that he is beyond the A.D.D. of his music video past. Articulate and exacting, this is a major epic chronicling a rather dark chapter in our recent history. In the late 60's, the Bay area of Northern California is thrown into turmoil by a series of serial attacks accompanied by the media published taunts of the perpetrator himself. The movie also charts the repercussions that follow for years afterward as the Zodiac killer is never caught and simply buries himself into urban legend. Long, methodical and rewarding for the more focused movie goer.
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