05/02/2006 Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Chili, gathered a substantial (avant-garde) theatre background in Paris and filmed most of his low budget oeuvre in Mexico. Fairly preoccupied with religion, he seems to be dismissed as a cult director who didn't make it.
El Topo might look like a spaghetti western under budget, I feel Jodorowsky is closer to Fassbinder or Herzog than to Leone. He makes the legless carry the armless, the older the young ones -till they become a man at the age of 7- the tall ones the little ones.
Jodorowsky digs freely into taboes, myths and the uglier sides of humanity, not afraid of some animal or human blood, or nudity.
Gratuitous?
I find it hard to condemn any director who gets away with a sincere love story between a cowboy turned monk and a dwarf.
