Surrealist Deconstruction in The Holy Mountain

Alejandro Jodorowsky stars as The Alchemist in The Holy Mountain.

In the late 1920s, the surrealist film movement was slowly beginning to grow in the Spanish avant-garde art scene. Filmmakers like Luis Bunuel, René Clair, Germaine Dulac and artist Salvador Dali had taken the same tenets from the movement's physical art counterpart and transposed them into the motion picture. In essence, surrealism in film focused on abusing all conventions and using imagery that is simultaneously grotesque, absurd and humorous to attack the main focus of the medium: Presenting stories and narratives in a realistic fashion. While fantasy is a mainstay of the cinematic world even today, it still retains its more stereotypical narrative flow and sensibilities to allow audiences to digest. However, fantasy is not the same as surrealism. Surrealism disregards everything expected from filmmaking conventions to instead force the viewer to question their own ideas and visual connections.

Alejandro Jodorowsky dabbled in surrealism in his early films, first using the concept in his short film  La Cravate (1957). Telling a science fiction tale of head swapping and manipulative identities, Cravate primarily utilized Jodorowsky's training in mime to convey the more abstract portions of the script. Though surrealist in implementation,its overt usayge of mime and the lack of budget depreciated the style immensely. Transitioning to a primarily narrative storytelling with Fando y Lis, albeit with a patchwork editing structure, Jodorowsky begun to experiment with fusing the avant-garde with the approachable.

With his breakout film El Topo (1970), Jodorowsky began to dabble in genre works and using a relatively understandable plot structure. Formed with the template of a classic western, El Topo was the closest Jodorowsky ever got to creating a film with commercial and populist appeal, which is something even Bunuel did with films like Un Chien Andalou (1929) and Los Olvidados (1951). Yet, Jodorowsky's surrealist imagery remained, crafting a tapestry of absurd juxtapositions commenting on everything from religion to sexuality.

The Holy Mountain is laden with abstract and absurd images, like this shot from early in the film using both insects and the eye; both integral parts of the surrealist imagery zeitgeist.

With his fourth film, The Holy Mountain (1973), Jodorowsky made the transition to full surrealist filmmaking: Instead of solely using the techniques of past artists and movements, he transformed them into something unique to his personal philosophy and used them to completely deconstruct the film form in a similar matter to Dali's masterpieces. He uses Freudian and absurdist imagery to call attention to the meaning of the visuals themselves and the viewer's connection to them, as well as a combination of montages and the Kuleshov effect to form relationships between those surreal images. By using the film as a form of looking glass into the mind of the viewer, character, and director all at once, the film offers an unconventional thesis to the art of film itself and its obtuse relationship with representing reality.

The surrealist imagery in The Holy Mounatin, like this scene of manufactured faces, often has both sociopolitical commentary and plot importance.

Just as in his earlier films, Jodorowosky capitalizes on surrealistic imagery to attack viewers' senses in Holy Mountain, but instead of working the images around the story, the images are inherently connected to the story itself. The first shot of the film presents a mystical temple-esque setting, as a black-cloaked figure shaves the hair of two young women. Absurd and jarring, the scene disregards exposition and sending the viewer directly into a state of questioning. Throughout the film, the surrealism ramps up considerably, including scenes involving birds flying from the wounds of murdered foreigners, guns shaped like religious artifacts, a room filled with statues of Jesus Christ and thousands of potatoes and yams, and the mass production of body parts.

According to Friedrich Kittler, "Film replays to its viewers their own processes of perception  – and this with a prediction achievable only via experiment, which is to say, it cannot be represented either by consciousness or language."[1] Kittler's argument centers on the idea that the effectiveness of imagery and symbolism in film can only be measured by the psychological reaction of the viewer. In his book Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses, Thomas Elsaesser explains that this argument suggest that cinema itself is tied closely with "madness and trauma, rather than realism and documentation." [2] 

When examining the cinematic art itself, one can assume the conveyance of story and meaning is of the utmost importance, with the suspension of disbelief being paramount to a film success. Yet, surrealism sheds that in favor of visceral reactions and emotional responses. Jodorowsky's imagery is fully rooted in those sentiments. His usage of unconventional and abstract mise-en-scene is entirely tied to the audience's ability to interpret it in their own way, and with that deconstructs the film into individual images and frames. More in line with static art, the shot composition of Holy Mountain is meant to be analyzed, not simply understood.

In this scene from Un Chien Andalout, Luis Bunuel crafted one of the most iconic match cuts in cinematic history.

While the solitary aspects of the visual image are integral to surrealism's success, film surrealism incorporates the entirety of the cinematic zeitgeist. One of the most prominent examples of this lies in Luis Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou, with the now iconic match cut of the moon and the slitting eye. His usage of conventional techniques in unconventional manners became a staple of the surrealist film movement, of which Jodorowsky continued throughout his career. In particular, the use of montage in The Holy Mountain serves as a vehicle for metaphorical and allegorical symbolism via overt juxtaposition. In addition, the montages themselves call attention to the art of language based storytelling.

Jodorowsky's spirituality and interest in tarot cards provides the framework for much of The Holy Mountain.

The majority of the montages in the film take the place of small stories told by the head monk of the Holy Mountain, as he outlines societies on various planets in the solar system. Each of these sequences transitions from the main tale of the Fool and the Alchemist into an alternate environment, each with their own quirks and stylistic tendencies. Working on multiple levels, each planet connects to a tarot card and a lesson taught to the Fool, as well as independent tales expanding the world of the film in unexpected ways. With each passing tale, the worlds get progressively absurd, eliminating any semblance of realism. By clashing with audience's expectations of the approachability of stories to instead force unintentional or intentional allegorical symbolism, The Holy Mountain shifts the importance of the film from the exterior to the interior, tying the film directly to the act of spectatorship.  

This scene, involving a bleeding Christ and this group of women and ape, is an early example of the Kuleshov effect in The Holy Mountain.

In his essay "Methods of Montage," film theorist Sergei Eisenstein states, "Simple relationships, giving for a clarity of impression, are for this reason necessary for maximum effectiveness." [3] Creating these relationships, albeit unconventionally, is the heart of perception manipulation in surrealist film. Perception is key when discussing cinematic surrealism, and the eye and its relationship with the screen is integral. Among the montages, the Kuleshov effect becomes a crucial aspect of how Jodorowsky's surrealist pseudo-symbolism works. Cuts are timed with almost complete synthesis to transitive meaning, every scene change signifying a moment of insight.Those single moments offer a close look at how the otherwise stream-of-consciousness style narrative is constructed. Take, for example, the transitions between the construction of new musculature and religious weaponry, or the earlier scene with the statue of Jesus and the group of women and apes. It is not that his intentions were to create a direct story, but instead to force audiences to create connections.

What sets Jodorowsky's film apart from others that use the same effects and conventions is the director's intent. In the majority of populist and mainstream filmmaking, techniques such as the Kuleshov effect and intricate montage are used to convey specific plot-oriented information or a particular theme or message. Stanley Kubrick, for example utilized the Kuleshov effect in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1970) to make Hal 9000, a solitary light, convey emotion throughout the film. Jodorowsky, like the surrealists before him, uses those techniques to bring attention to the techniques themselves. Surrealism thrives on the destruction of tropes and expectations to manipulate its respective medium, transforming the viewers concept of reality by manipulating their individual ideals. The only way to truly understand how The Holy Mountain works as a film demands the understanding of how films are viewed, which is precisely the deconstruction and self-referential nature that the surrealist movement was built upon.

The Alchemist (Alejandro Jodorowsky) delivers the final aside in The Holy Mountain.

The Holy Mountain does not use visuals and methods to simply dismantle the medium, but also the act of filmmaking itself. Jodorowsky, after spending the vast majority of the film dissecting and assaulting the senses of viewers through imagery, chose to end the film with an aside reminiscent of the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). As the Alchemist talks to his disciples, he says "We began in a fairytale and we came to life, but is this life reality? No. It is a film. Zoom back camera. We are images, dreams, photographs. We must not stay here. Prisoners! We shall break the illusion. This is magic! Goodbye to the Holy Mountain. Real life awaits us." This final scene completes Jodorowsky's abstract composition and reveals his intentions and the film's true theme. The Holy Mountain is a symbol for film, and its disconnection from reality. The Holy Mountain, as a film itself, presents an argument for film's imprecise way of representing reality, as each element requires knowledge of both the eye and the screen. Perception is forced in film, crafted by the hands of its creators and manipulated in such a way that deception is tantamount to proper storytelling. The audience, the characters, and the director are all single parts of a larger whole. The screen is not a vehicle for a story or meaning, but a way to connect various people and imagery in one solitary medium. Jodorowsky seems to argue that film is an imperfect art form, but within its imperfection lies a tapestry of complexities that prove film is an art and not just entertainment.

[1] Kittler, Friedreich A. "Romanticism -- Psychoanalysis -- Film: A History of the Double," in Literature, Media, Information Systems: Essays. Amsterdam: G+B Arts International, 1997.

[2] Elsaesser, T., & Hagener, M. Film theory: an introduction through the senses. p.173. New York: Routledge, 2015.

[3] Eisenstein, S., & Leyda, J. Film form: Essays in Film Theory. p.73. San Diego: Harvest, 2002.

[4]El Topo. Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Mexico/United States: ABKCO Films, 1970. [5]La Cravate. Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. France: 1957. [6]Fando y Lis. Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Mexico: ABKCO Records, 1968. [7]The Holy Mountain. Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Mexico/United States: ABKCO Records, 1973.

[8]2001: A Space Odyssey. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. United States: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968

[9]Los Olvidados. Directed by Luis Buñuel. Mexico: Koch-Lorber Films, 1951.

[10]Un Chien Andalou. Directed by Luis Buñuel. France: Les Grands Films, 1929.

[11]Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. United Kingdom: Columbia Tristar, 1975,

The Spiritual Symbolism of El Topo: Part Two

Continued from Part One:

While the first act of Alejandro Jodorowsky's spiritual genre-bender El Topo can be considered a pseudo-western, it is only one half of a larger whole that defies categorization. The film can be split into two parts, ending where the last article left off: El Topo's pilgrimage back through the carnage. The first half is a story of vengeance not dissimilar to films such as Oldboy, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Unforgiven, though with a palpable sense of religious surrealism. The second half of the film, on the other hand, is a more intimate story of redemption and self-identification.

Paula Romo as the Woman in Black in El Topo (1970)

The turning point for the film occurs on the bridge where El Topo stands across from the Woman in Black (Paula Romo) who assisted him in finding the four gun masters. As she betrays and fires upon him, El Topo stands with outspread arms and accepts the attack. Shot after shot, he staggers once again into that crucifixion-esque pose. As established earlier, Jodorowsky has a penchant for religious symbolism. This scene is no different, equating El Topo, who had already referred to himself frequently as God, to the son of God himself. After discovering the folly of his ways in his blood-soaked quest, El Topo offers himself up to atone for his sins.

El Topo's (Alejandro Jodorowsky) 'death' in El Topo (1970)

However, this same scene has a different, more broad meaning in the context of the story. El Topo's apparent 'death' acts as a turning point for the character, the story, and the religious thematic presence. Namely, a shift from Judeo-Christian symbolism and ideology to a more Eastern-centered philosophy. In regards to the character himself, we see a change from a sin-focused destructive inclination to a more nurturing, selfless ideology. The film itself changes tone immensely, shedding most of the token Western tropes that it relied on up to this point in favor for heavier Eastern overtones and surrealist visual comparisons of cults to personal spirituality. Finally, the themes of the film shift toward broad societal commentary, highlighting and commenting on perpetual taboos and prejudices while simultaneously shedding social norms and operating on its own unique plane.

The beginning of the second act includes a title card, which simply reads "Psalms." In the Christian bible, the book of Psalms is a book of short poems and songs commonly cited to King David. The psalms deal with many aspects of an individual's role including  honesty, pain, anger, sorrow, questioning, love and praise, though they always loop back to the individual's own faith. By beginning the second act of El Topo with Psalms, Jodorowsky sets an immediate identifier for the scenes to follow. El Topo will face many of life's more evocative emotion, in a journey to his own spiritual awakening.

Alejandro Jodorowsky in El Topo (1970)

Following the title card, El Topo is shown to be in a meditative state, surrounded by a group of monks, many of whom are disfigured or deformed. He has spent years meditating on the gun masters "four lessons," and in the process his physical form has changed. Gone is the leather clad, dark-haired gunslinger; In his place, an enlightened blonde. After his betrayal, the group of mutants and dwarves that rescued him had begun to praise him as a God. "I am not God. I am a man," he tells them, demonstrating the change in his psyche that has occurred.

El Topo's physical changes through years of meditation are used by Jodorowsky to add to the earlier moment of pseudo-crucifixion. After seeing his mistakes in his previous life and meditating on those mistakes, El Topo is shown to have completed his own form of resurrection or reincarnation, following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, Buddha, and nearly all enlightened deities.

The mutants of El Topo (1970)

In that same regard, the group of mutants is important once again. They, too, symbolize a change in El Topo’s philosophy, with the gunslinger shifting toward a more selfless lifestyle. A common theme in religious texts is the sacred nature of caring for the unwanted and the disenfranchised. In Christianity, this theme includes parables where Jesus, the “King of Kings,” stoops down to help the sick and weary, including lepers and deformities. Buddhism is built on those ideas, with the journey to enlightenment being filled with looking out for those less fortunate.

Alejandro Jodorowsky and Jacqueline Luis as El Topo's wife in El Topo (1970)

Here, El Topo has shed his old lifestyle for a new humble outlook. In the first half of the film, he leaves his son at a monastery to bring an attractive woman along on his journeys; in one of the more controversial scenes in the film, El Topo rapes her and converts her over to his mindset. In the second act, his attitude toward women - and people in general - is more intrinsic, where he is shown to care immensely for the mutants even though the rest of the population sees them as sideshow acts. His new wife (Jacqueline Luis), who was also the first to talk to him after his reawakening, is shown as a distinctly caring and quaint individual; a far cry from his lover in the first act.

The town cult in El Topo (1970)

In town, the most predominate piece of surrealistic imagery comes from the local religion, which is more of a cult than any established belief system. Centered around a symbol similar to the all-seeing eye affiliated with the illuminati, this cult is shown to have a drastic negative effect on its townsfolk. For instance, one of the first sequences involves the town beating and branding a black man, before a group of women force themselves upon him and then send him off to die. The cult is shown to bring out the worst in society, as Jodorowsky uses his surrealist inclinations to highlight the immorality of modern culture. In doing so, Jodorowsky makes an argument toward a disconnection between the broader whole of human culture and that of enlightened and spiritual individuals.

El Topo's final moments in El Topo (1970)

El Topo’s final scene closes the titular character’s journey through spirituality and violence in a way that not many other films could pull off. After witnessing the massacre of his people and the return of his son, he commits self-immolation by combustion, a common protest by Buddhist practitioners. Here, the act is used by El Topo as a form of repentance and acceptance of his life’s journey. His grave then becomes a beehive, just as the graves of the gun masters did in the first half of the film. Jodorowsky uses the same symbols in repetition to make the film almost cyclical, with El Topo’s son riding into the distance with his wife and child in a near perfect mirror of the opening shots.

The overall arc of El Topo eventually became a staple of Jodorowsky's creative work, with many aspects reappearing in different forms and contexts. In his graphic novel Son of the Gun, the main character Juan Solo goes through a similar journey with a blood-soaked origin progressing toward spiritual enlightenment, and finally martyrdom in the face of extreme persecution or tragedy. In the novel, Solo begins his life as a sharpshooter and quickly finds his route to fortune, paved with the blood of his victims. As the story progresses and Solo stumbles into an oedipal downfall, he eventually finds redemption at the hands of a desert church. Finally, just as in El Topo, Solo commits religious suicide in front of a vast audience, though the method varies from the self burning in El Topo.

Father and son, Alejandro Jodorowsky and Brontis Jodorowsky in El Topo (1970)

There are, of course, differences between the two narratives, but the main turning points remain the same. In fact, Son of the Gun shares one more similarity with El Topo in the form of the child prodigy gunslinger. El Topo begins with Topo and his son riding away from his mother’s grave, and eventually El Topo teaches the young boy to shoot, only to be usurped by him in the final act. Son of the Gun’s child is Solo’s younger brother, who after also having been taught to shoot by the protagonist, discovers his brother has been sleeping with their mother (unknowingly).

By using a younger rival or student as a late-narrative foil, Jodorowsky allows one final theme to squeeze through the cracks. Specifically, the concept that a person’s actions can both corrupt and save another. In both cases, the protagonist’s original contact with their students change the character for the worse: In El Topo’s case, El Topo’s abandonment of his son in favor for a woman pushed him to pursue violence in the same vein as his father. On the other hand, the final interaction between father and son redeems both characters, with El Topo embracing his sin and mistakes and becoming a martyr, and his son taking up his mantle. The relation is important as well, seeing that a father and son or two brothers are closer and more influential on one another than as solely teachers and pupils.

To close, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films are dense, and can be dissected in any number of ways. Many of these analyses are just one way to look at his symbolism, though with Jodorowsky and his surrealism, his intent is often heavily blurred. Nevertheless, with El Topo, Jodo cemented his penchant for the religious and the manic, all the while keeping partially in line with its Western genre roots.

The Spiritual Symbolism of El Topo: Part One

Alejandro Jodorowsky began his career with an already well-defined style, utilizing extensive surrealism and a bizarre setting in his debut La Cravate, and then moving further into the surrealist aspect with the nonstop grotesqueries of his first feature Fando Y Lis. One of the few traits those films shared was their loose narrative structure. Neither film has a story that is truly affecting, as Jodorowsky tended to lean heavier on moods and visuals to elicit audience reaction. However, his next and best known feature, El Topo, evades the haphazard plotting of his prior works in favor for a more concrete and emotional tale. Yet, in line with his initial forays into filmmaking, Jodorowsky keeps his surrealist bend intact, demonstrating full control of his Dali-esque visuals to craft a tale that is simultaneously campy and wholly invocational.

El Topo, in essence, is a genre film through and through. This was the film that really helped Jodorowsky jump into the limelight, essentially creating the now-cinema-staple of the midnight movie. El Topo is a surrealistic take on the Western, featuring a renegade-turned-mystic in his journey to find enlightenment. While this did mark Jodorowsky’s first foray into populist film genres, it also set the stage for one of his most prominent recurring themes: Religion and spirituality,

The first segment of the film involves the titular gunslinger in a journey to kill the four great gun masters. A blood-soaked tale of revenge and twisted symbolism, this section is a straight western, with some very distinct characteristics setting it apart. First and foremost, the film’s religious connection is blatantly apparent from nearly the beginning of the film, with the titular character even going so far as to call himself a god.

In one of the earliest scenes, El Topo and his son wander into a small village where an apparent slaughter has taken place. Upon walking into the local church, they see bloodied corpses dangling from the rafters. While the gruesome killings may seem like the more important matter, Jodorowsky’s choice of a church for the locale of this monstrosity is crucial. Before the villains are revealed in any tangible form, El Topo cements their disregard for the sanctity of religion and religious artifacts. This theme of religious desecration comes in again only a few scenes later.

As El Topo continues his quest to find the village's murderers, he comes across a group of them left behind, hanging around in the mountains. One of the men is sniffing and snacking on a pile of women’s shoes, while another is gluttonously devouring food. Along with the four gun masters and the rest of the murderers, these begin one of the religious motifs of the film: The seven deadly sins. Gluttony, Lust, Avarice, Envy, Wrath….all seven are representing one form or another as the antagonists of the film.

This is where the previous note of religious desecration comes back into play. El Topo and his son come upon a small monastery as they seek the murderers, and see a group of the killers tormenting the locals. One sits and tears away pages of a bible, while another makes flirtatious movements toward a statue of the Virgin Mary. This sequence comes to head when the killers strip a group of monks and ride them around the grounds like horses, ripping the skin off of their bare rear-ends. Jodorowsky hits hard on these anti-religion visuals, and by doing so creates a new message. The deadly sins, personified by the villains of the film, do nothing but harm religious sensibilities and ideals while searching to feed their ever growing desires.

However, this theme doesn’t stay for the entire film. At the end of the first half, after killing the last of the gun masters, El Topo becomes wracked with guilt. Betrayed by his companions, he turns arounds and heads in the direction of his victims. He finds one corpse after another, and with each he discovers small populations of bees living inside of the remains. This is, in fact, a call to a story in Judges 14, where the corpse of a lion killed by Samson is filled with a beehive and a plethora of honey.

This may seem like a harrowing piece of imagery, but it’s quite simple. Here, El Topo has realized that his journey of revenge and destruction was ill-fated, and in regret, turns to retreat along his path. While Jodorowsky initially displayed these seven deadly sins as banes of religion and spirituality, here the argument seems to have switched. Instead, El Topo has come to the realization that to reach true enlightenment, one must learn to accept and understand the sins instead of just outright destroying them. This leads to the second half of the film, which forgoes the revenge narrative for a tale of spiritual understanding and redemption.

Part two coming soon...

Ghosts of the Past: La Cravate, Fando Y Lis, Son Of A Gun

  One of the trademark signs of surrealistic filmmaking is the use of ghosts, apparitions, or otherworldly figures as a means of allegorical symbolism. Now, this isn't the same as, say, the haunting seen in Lewis Allen's The Uninvited or Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist. These ghosts, or rather "ghosts", are purely there for symbolic and internal reasons as opposed to malicious beings. Oftentimes, they act as reflections of past people or societies, or spiritual connections to those lost. However, just as often, they are used as direct looks into the main characters' psyches and minds.

Alejandro Jodorowsky uses this in many of his works, as one of the world's most renowned surrealists. Beginning his work as a circus clown followed by a stint as a theater director with a penchant for mime, Jodorowsky was always a fan of surrealistic movements and situations. In his first film, the short titled La Cravate, he uses the art of mime to tell an oddly proto-science fiction tale of body switching and the sale of severed heads. Starring, writing, and directing this first short, Jodorowsky uses overacted movements and unique framing to convey a seemingly hidden narrative. To be completely honest, La Cravate is an outlier in the grand scheme of Jodo's work, but it did establish Jodorowsky's love of the surreal.

Now, back to the ghosts: While La Cravate showed the beginning of his surrealistic inclinations, his first feature film Fando Y Lis takes them to another level. The film uses small vignettes to tell the story of Fando and Lis, as they journey together to find a lost city. The first of these vignettes immediately uses this ghostly theme in the form of a seemingly unchanged society. A group of people stand all over a post-apocalyptic wasteland of crumbled buildings and structures, including men in suits idly passing time, dancers dancing in the street, and a jazz band playing unfettered on a flaming piano. This sort of reflectionary apparition goes to demonstrate the disconnection with society by Fando and Lis, but also adds a few ancillary notes. For one, the burning (then destroyed) piano could arguably symbolize society's reckless descent into obliteration, which is surprisingly fitting in today's political climate. However, this sequence ends with a statement: "End of the first chant, and Tar was inside his head." This brings these strange happenings to a more internal, instead of external state. That said, none of these people are truly ghosts - they're real beings, a misogynistic and perverted bunch. However, that's what sets apart Jodorowsky and other surrealistic directors apart from simple horror directors.

Yet, Jodorowsky didn't stay away from using actual ghosts in his stories as well. One of the most prominent, and poignant, uses appears in the graphic novel Son of the Gun. The ghosts here are actual spirits, and they don't appear until the beginning of the third act, but they are still eminently Jodo-esque. The first of these is the main character Juan's sister, who he unknowingly kills earlier in the book. After meeting and sleeping with his mother, and then the full realization of what had occured, the two leave to head south and bring along the ghost of Juan's sister. Here, the ghosts are not ever-present. In fact, aside from in a few choice scenes, the ghost is rarely seen. It is used here to show the attachment past mistakes have on Juan and the movement of his story. Appearing later in the book, more ghosts appear including his mother and some of the fatalities brought on by Juan's younger brother, used to the same effect. A for the last ghost, that's Juan himself. After sacrificing his life to bring rain to religious people, he returns as an apparition to talk to his brother. Again, Jodorowsky fuses the supernatural with the natural to convey themes of familial regret and remorse. Jodorowsky's work, be it a comic about a gunslinger or a feature length head trip, always turns to be an analysis of the characters themselves - unflinching and brutally twisted visions of humanity's plight.