The Films Of Alejandro Jodorowsky (including El
Topo & Holy Mountain/Anchor
Bay DVD Set)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras B Films: A-
Alejandro
Jodorowsky's two major features, El Topo
and The Holy Mountain, set the bar
for midnight movies in America
with a combination of genre-bending irreverence and whacked out
storytelling. Since their release (El Topo in 1970, The Holy Mountain in 1973), die-hard cineastes and curious
neophytes alike have flocked to late-night movie houses to worship at the altar
of one of cinema's preeminent cultists.
Both
films were released on Blu-Ray by Anchor
Bay in April 2011 (that
review is up next), and they form the backbone of the DVD set The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky,
originally released in 2007. The
six-disc box also includes the soundtracks to El Topo and The Holy
Mountain, Jodorowsky's 1957 short film La
Cravate and 1968's Fando y Lis,
and is stocked with features, including Jodorowsky commentaries, trailers,
photo galleries, documentaries, and script pages.
El Topo and The Holy Mountain are obviously the draws for a set like this, and
their presentations certainly justify the purchase. El
Topo looks and sounds great in its HD digital restoration and 5.1 Dolby
Digital surround sound, while The Holy
Mountain boasts a 2K digital restoration and 5.1 Dolby Digital mix (both
films are also presented in 5.1 and 2.0 stereo). But if these films are the singles, its the
deep cuts the other two works that are the real gems.
The
35-minute La Cravate is a surrealist
adaptation of a Thomas Mann story about head swapping with the production
values of a high school theater group, the aesthetics of a German Expressionist
silent, and the sensibilities of Kenneth Anger.
(If you look at it the right way, you'll also see a progenitor to the
work of Guy Maddin.) Of course it all
works, almost brilliantly. The film was
thought lost until its rediscovery in a German attic in 2006, and it looks stunning
thanks to a HD digital restoration that makes it look like a product of the
early 1980s rather than the late 1950s. (Its 2.0 stereo mix gets the job done
it's a silent film, after all.) The set
alone is worth it for this one work.
But Fando y Lis is nothing to be
ignored. Shot in 16mm black and white
and released in 1968, it's Jodorowsky's first feature (at 96 minutes) and the
sort of counterculture head trip you'd expect to find in some grimy underground
theater in the last '60s (no wonder Dennis Hopper was a fan of Jodorowsky). A
man and woman Fando and Lis head out into the desolate deserts and rubble
of the exterior world and their interior selves in search of spirituality and
happiness and, naturally, things go off the rails. Yet unlike American freak-outs of the era,
this film is guided by Jodorowsky's strength as a surrealist storyteller and it
never gets boring or silly. Rather, it's
beautiful and almost elegant, with shades of Marienbad, Bergman, and Russ Meyer peppered throughout. It's the only film in the set not digitally
restored; instead it's presented in a letterbox widescreen transfer of the
original negative. So it fares a little
worse than the rest of the films in the set, but it still looks decent given
its age and low budget and the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono mix is adequate.
Thanks to
El Topo and The Holy Mountain, The Films
of Alejandro Jodorowsky has lasting appeal as a kind of DIY midnight movie
starter kit. But if you want to impress
your friends, ignore those two films. Instead, start the night with a screening
of La Cravate before your fire up The Room. Or pair some exploitative biker movie with Fando y Lis. It might throw people for a loop, but
choosing either (or both) of these films over the other two will fly in the
face of expectation and burnish your cred as a cineaste.
- Dante A. Ciampaglia
