PART ONE
When a man buries a pole
in the sand,
he automatically creates
a sundial and begins to mark time.
To begin marking time
is to begin creating a culture.
A pole rises out of the
desert sand.
El Topo appears
riding a black horse.
He is dressed entirely
in black:
boots, pants, shirt,
jacket, hat.
He carries an open
umbrella.
[Strange to carry
an umbrella in the desert
where it never rains!
Perhaps El Topo is
waiting for the rain to
come forth from his body
to collect it in the black
chalice: the umbrella.]
His seven-year-old
son rides behind him,
holding on to his back.
Except for a hat and
moccasins, the child is
nude. His name is Brontis.
[My own son's name is Brontis.
I named him
after a family from the
town where I was born,
Tocopilla, Chile.
The father of the family, a baker,
always allowed his children
to play with any toy they
wanted. My father
forbade me to play with war toys.
He was a pacifist. And
since all toys symbolize war,
I could never play. But
the Brontis children could play.
They were free.]
El Topo dismounts and lifts
his son down.
He ties the umbrella to
the pole so that the black
chalice, the cup, becomes
fused with the pole.
[A marriage between
that which exists face down
waiting to be nourished
from the ground: the umbrella;
and that which exists
growing upward waiting
to be nourished by the
sun and the sky: the pole.]
He removes a leather pouch
from his saddle and
takes out a toy bear and
a picture of a woman.
The picture is mounted
in an antique frame banded
in black. A symbol of
grief. El Topo speaks to Brontis.
EL TOPO
Today you are seven years
old.
Now you are a man.
Bury your first toy and
your mother's picture.
The child sits beside the sundial.
[Filmed at noon so there
is no shadow.
Perhaps the child is the
sundial's shadow.]
He digs a hole in the sand
and buries the bear,
while El Topo plays a
flute. The child tries to bury
his mother's picture but
can't quite complete the task.
Half the picture remains
above the surface of the sand
as El Topo rides off holding
the open umbrella,
his song seated behind
him.
The titles appear in the
sky as El Topo
and Brontis disappear
in the horizon.
PRODUCCIONES PANICAS PRESENTS
A FILM BY ALEXANDRO JODOROWSKY
DRAWINGS OF HANDS DIGGING
EARTH.
The credits appear superimposed
over the hands.
with
ALEXANDRO JODOROWSKY
JACQUELINE LUIS
MARA LORENZIO
and
DAVID SILVA, ALFONSO ARAU,
PAULA ROMO, ROBERT JOHN,
JUAN JOSE GURROLA, BERTA
LOMELI, AGUSTIN ISUNZA,
JULIEN DE MERICHE, JOSE
ANTONION ALCARAZ, HECTOR
MARTINEZ "EL BORRADO",
VICTOR FOSADO, FELIPE DIAZ
GARZA, the child BRONTIS
JODOROWSKY
Music, Costumes, Scenic
Design: ALEXANDRO JODOROWSKY
Arrangements and Orchestration:
NACHO MENDEZ
Editing: FEDERICO
LANDEROS
Director of Photography:
RAFAEL CORKIDI
Executive Producer:
ROBERTO VISKIN
Written and Directed by
ALEXANDRO JODOROWSKY
DRAWINGS OF MOLES. The following narration is heard.
MAN'S VOICE
THE MOLE IS AN ANIMAL
THAT DIGS TUNNELS
UNDERGROUND SEARCHING
FOR THE SUN.
SOMETIMES HIS JOURNEY
LEADS HIM TO THE SURFACE.
WHEN HE LOOKS AT THE SUN,
HE IS BLINDED.
Coming out of the desert, El Topo and Brontis
ride past a green tree,
the first sign of the desert's end. El
Topo crosses the threshold marked
by the tree as if he were entering the vegetal
door to the human world.
Cries of vultures. El Topo sees a circular
pool filled with blood.
On a tall stake, the body of a child is impaled.
[Another sundial, but this time a criminal sundial.]
El Topo continues his riding and enters a village
street where
he sees disemboweled burros, the corpse of an
old horse,
painted red, and one hundred women dressed in
white,
immobile as if asleep, raped and murdered.
Brides.
El Topo rides along the street past the smouldering
ruins
of furniture. He approaches a church splashed
with blood.
In front of the church runs a river of blood.
El Topo dismounts
with his son and carries him across the bloody
river.
[Rite of Initiation.]
Opening the doors of the church, he sees the
multitude
of men hanging from the rafters. Bridegrooms.
El Topo leaves the church and sees an Old Man
who has
been butchered dragging himself along the ground.
OLD MAN
Kill me. Have mercy.
EL TOPO
Who were they?
The old man doesnt answer.
El Topo grabs him and tries to make him speak,
but the Old Man only repeats his plea.
OLD MAN
Kill me. Have mercy.
El Topo hands his revolver to Brontis,
who shoots the Old Man in the heart.
El Topo takes the revolver from his son.
Brontis embraces his father.
El Topo places four rings set with precious
stones on the fingers of his right hand.
High on a red rock mountain, the First Bandit
scans the
horizon through a pirate's telescope.
He smells a little flower,
picks up one of many high-heeled shoes scattered
around him
and kisses it as if it were a woman's sex.
Then he sucks it as if it
were a phallus. He fires at the shoes,
practicing his marksmanship.
The Second Bandit, dressed like a typical Mexican
cowboy,
peels a banana he has stuck on the top of a
cactus.
He unsheathes his sword and violently
cuts the banana into little
slices, leaving it in its original form balanced
on top of the cactus.
Very elegantly, he takes a toothpick out
of his mouth and
uses it to pick up the top slice of the banana,
then eats it.
On a ledge of the mountain, the Third Bandit
spreads beans on the
ground to form a huge woman. The woman's
legs are wide open.
The Bandit lies on top of the woman as
if he were possessing her.
As he finishes, he gluttonously devours
the beans.
The First Bandit tires of his shoes. He
hurls them off a cliff.
He is bored. He takes out his pirate's
telescope and
scans the horizon. He sees El Topo's hand with
the rings.
He signals the Second and Third Bandits with
a mirror.
The Third Bandit loads his pistol from the gunbelt
he wears as a
headband. The Bandits gallop off on their
horses after El Topo.
They reach him. El Topo continues on his
way with great dignity.
The Bandits jeer at Brontis as he rides
in front of El Topo on the saddle.
They tug at El Topo's beard. They
spit at the head of El Topo's horse.
El Topo does not respond.
They come to a flock of goats and a little stream
of water.
The Third Bandit dismounts and washes his face
without removing
his glasses. He remounts, and the Bandits
contront El Topo.
The Second Bandit inflates a small red balloon.
He passes it to the
First Bandit, who passes it to the Third Bandit,
who dismounts and
places the balloon on the ground between the
Bandits and El Topo.
He remounts. The balloon whistles
as it begins to deflate.
El Topo slips Brontis behind him on the
horse. The Bandits
and El Topo wait for the balloon to deflate
completely before
they fire. The balloon has deflated.
El Topo fires rapidly.
The Second and Third Bandits begin to
fall very slowly
from their horses. Their faces are
destroyed.
[Their deaths resemble a snail crawling down the trunk of a tree.]
El Topo and the First Bandit have dismounted.
The Bandit stands facing El Topo, waiting for
him
to make a move. El Topo hands his pistol
to Brontis
to cover him while he picks up two rifles from
the ground.
He throws one of the rifles to the First
Bandit and challenges him.
The Bandit attacks El Topo. El Topo strikes
him in the stomach
with the butt of his rifle, knocking him down.
He shoots the
Bandit in the right knee. He grabs him
by the hair.
EL TOPO
Who?
THE FIRST
BANDIT
The Colonel.
EL TOPO
How many?
THE FIRST
BANDIT
Five other men.
EL TOPO
Where?
THE FIRST
BANDIT
In the Franciscan Mission.
The Bandit dies with his mouth open.
El Topo removes the four rings from his
fingers and places them in the Bandit's mouth.
He closes the Bandit's lips and climbs out of
the pool.
The Franciscan Mission.
A gigantic bandit, nicknamed El Chiquilin (Tiny),
shoots ten children with a machine gun.
Countless graves, perhaps of former victims.
As the children fall to the ground bleeding,
a gilded gramophone is seen.
It is playing music. El Chiquilin laughs.
El Topo and Brontis approach the wall of the
Mission.
They peer over and see the Bandits of the Franciscan
Mission.
Four Monks are tied by the wrists with two ropes
secured to the cross
of one of the bell towers. The Bandit
of the Three Hats drinks rum
and reads a large red Bible. The Thin Bandit
drinks rum from a
gold chalice. He is surrounded by icons,
candelabras, altar robes,
religious paintings. There are many graves.
The Thin Bandit
plays solitaire on one of the paintings.
The Thin Bandit drinks.
He chokes and spits up in a burst of laughter.
He is happy with his treasures.
A Bandit called Cacama is dressed like a bridegroom,
in veils and a crowned hat. He cuts off
the leg of a live chicken
with his machete and tries to feed it to his
collection of iguanas.
Another Bandit, the Plumed One, walks
among the graves carrying
the old gilded gramaphone. The Bandit
of the Three Hats tears
out a page of the Bible, blows his nose in it,
wads it into a ball
and tosses it away. He calmly continues reading
the Holy Book.
Cacama approaches, dragging his mascot iguana
behind him by a rope.
The Plumed One winds up the gramaphone
and puts on a record.
An old Mexican waltz plays. The Four Bandits
walk toward the Monks
tied to the bell tower. They untie them,
bow to them, threaten them
with their pistols. The Franciscans come
toward the Bandits.
The Bandits take the Monks by their waists
and begin to waltz with them.
The Bandits kiss the Monks as if they were women.
Each kiss is more passionate than the last.
Cacama undresses one of the Monks and drapes
an altar cloth
around him like a veil. He cuts his own
finger with his knife
and reddens the Monk's lips with his blood.
The Four Bandits run off among the cactus
with the nude Monks over their shoulders.
The Four Monks get down on their hands and knees,
and the Bandits ride them like horses, whipping
their
buttocks with spiny cactus leaves. Their buttocks
bleed.
A row of two hundred townspeople lean face forward
against a wall
of the convent. El Chiquilin walks by
them. He pulls out his revolver,
and at each ten steps he fires at random into
the lineup.
Those who are hit fall slowly to the ground.
The Four Bandits return from their orgy
carrying the Monks, whom they have bound.
A Woman, dressed out of Grimm's Fairy Tales,
appears at the door of the Mission. She
wears a long
skirt and a hat, and carries a wooden water
bucket.
She walks toward the well in the middle of the
courtyard and lowers the bucket into a water
barrel.
The barrel is too full, and the water overflows.
[A man goes to see a Zen
Master.
The Master places a cup
in front of the man
and begins to fill it
with tea until the liquid
spills over the rim.
The Master says:
"Your mind is like this.
How can you expect to
understand Zen?"]
The Bandits hoot euphorically at the Woman.
Each one picks up an iguana, puts it between
his legs and pretends to ride it like a horse.
The iguanas look like prehistoric phalluses.
The Bandits surround the Woman.
They caress her sadistically with their iguanas.
BANDITS
The Colonel isnt selfish.
He uses his women
once and then turns them
over to us.
With raucous laughter, they caress the
Woman's breasts and sex with their iguanas.
WOMAN
The Colonel said he'd
kill anyone who touched me.
The Four Bandits are frightened by the
Colonel's name and back away from the Woman.
She goes to the well and fills the bucket.
She returns to the Mission and enters.
The Woman walks through a corridor full of black
pigs and old crosses
made from pieces of tree trunks. In the
center of an adobe room
shaped like a cone, the Colonel awaits her.
Clad only in the red satin
shorts of a rhumba dancer, he lies on his back
on top of an old painting.
As the Woman approaches, he extends one
of his feet to be kissed.
She kisses it. The Colonel is a
small old man, selfish, weak and swollen.
After the Woman kisses his foot, he stretches
and scratches himself like a baby.
He calls for the Woman as if she were
his mother. She pulls him up and leads
him to a confessional, where she sets him down.
She walks to the wall of the
cone-shaped room and takes down an undershirt
stretched out over a religious
painting. She puts it on the Colonel.
He stands in the middle of the room
while his woman dresses him in his riding pants.
As the Colonel is dressed,
he begins to gain strength and power.
He washes his hands in the bucket
the Woman holds between her knees and dries
them with her hair.
He is seated, half dressed. He has added
a wide leather belt.
He makes himself up with false eyelashes, lipstick,
powder, etc.
He lets the Woman place a toupee on his head.
The Woman goes for his boots. She opens
a box containing two heel lifts,
and carefully places them in the boots.
She approaches the Colonel with the boots,
and he kicks her in the stomach, throwing her
to the ground, and screams at her.
COLONEL
Who asked you for them?
Don't anticipate my wishes!
He extends one of his legs, gesturing the Woman
to put on his boots.
Now completely dressed in military tunic
out of an operetta, many
medals and makeup, the Colonel picks up a pistol
and heads for the door.
He opens the door and stands on the threshold.
A stampede of black pigs bolt
out of the door from behind him, bursting into
the day like heralds of the night.
The Colonel appears in the doorway,
and the Bandits fall to their knees.
BANDITS
Forgive us. Forgive
us.
The Colonel fires a volley of shots at the ground,
centimeters away from the whining Bandits.
They drag themselves along the ground and
kiss the Colonel's feet. The Woman walks
over
to the Colonel with great pride. She feels protected.
El Topo and Brontis silently edge along the old
Missions walls.
They come to the base of a tower where
El Chiquilin stands guard.
El Topo hurls a knife into the air. It
cuts El Chiquilin's throat.
He vomits a liter of blood. With
comic violence, he falls from
the tower and crashes to the ground. El
Topo cleans his knife
on El Chiquilin's shoulder and goes looking
for the other Bandits.
The Colonel stands with one foot on the stomach
of the Plumed
One, who is sprawled out on the ground with
the other bandits.
COLONEL
(to the Woman)
They have no soul.
They're like dogs.
But sometimes they get
bored and
I have to give them my
leftovers.
(to the Bandits)
All right, dogs.
Beg for your share.
The Bandits rise to their knees, their tongues
hanging out.
They twist their buttocks as though they
had tails
and beg the Colonel to give them the Woman.
Barking impatiently, they want to touch her,
but the Colonel yells at them.
COLONEL
Down, dogs!
The Bandits freeze with their tongues still out.
COLONEL
(to the Woman)
Kiss them on the mouth.
Humiliated, the Woman kisses the horrible Bandits,
one by one.
When she kisses the Thin Bandit, he can't
contain himself.
He grabs her and tries to rape her. The
other Bandits
are aroused and start to close in on the Woman.
COLONEL
Down, dogs!
They freeze again. The Colonel pushes the Women down to her knees.
COLONEL
These animals like to
look.
They want to see your
breasts.
The Woman raises her blouse and shows her breats
to the Bandits.
The Colonel pushes her down to the ground.
COLONEL
Eat, dogs!
The Bandits throw themselves on top of the Woman.
With Brontis on his back, El Topo kicks down
the enormous wooden
doors of the Mission. He bursts into the
patio, challenging the
Bandits and the Colonel. Started,
they raise their hands in surrender.
Brontis takes their pistols. The Plumed One
reaches for a knife hidden
in the collar of his shirt. El Topo shoots
him. Several liters of orange
colored blood gush from the Bandit's wounded
body. The dying Bandit
staggers away, terrifying the chickens, trying
to gather up candelabras,
pictures, chalices and finally his gramaphone.
But he hasn't the strength,
and the gramophone falls from his hands. His
hat falls from his head,
revealing a sad bald spot. He dies.
The Monks pick up the pistols and point them
at the Bandits.
El Topo gives the Colonel back his pistol and
challenges him to a duel.
The Colonel tries to flee. El Topo follows
him. They come to a large
circular corral. El Topo backs off a short
distance from the Colonel and
slowly turns his back to him. The Colonel
raises his pistol. El Topo turns
abruptly and fires, shooting the gun from the
Colonel's hand. The Monks
and Bandits jeer at the Colonel. El Topo fires
at the Colonel's head and shoots
off his toupee. The Bandits and Monks
laugh even harder. El Topo grabs the
Colonel by his uniform, and with a single jerk,
rips off all his clothes, even his boots.
The Colonel looks like an old baby dressed in
the red panties of a rhumba dancer.
COLONEL
Who are you to judge?
EL TOPO
I am God.
El Topo signals the Bandits and the Monks.
He takes out his knife.
COLONEL
No! Anything but
that!
The Bandits and Monks force the Colonel to the
ground and hold apart his legs.
El Topo raises his arm and lets the knife
fall with uncontainable fury to the
Colonel's sex, castrating him. The mutilated
Colonel walks away slowly, nude.
He picks up his revolver, places it in his mouth
and blows out his brains.
The townspeople cover the Bandits with white
cloth sacks. El Topo walks away,
followed by his son, the Four Monks and the
Woman. The Woman runs after him.
She places his left hand on her left breast
and looks in his eyes. El Topo feels
the breast with his palm, pushes the Woman aside
and continues walking.
The townspeople fire a machine gun at the white
sacks.
Huge streams of blood burst forth.
El Topo reaches for his horse. The Woman
follows and stops him again. She
stands facing him. Brontis forces himself
between them and pushes her away.
The Woman pushes the child to the ground.
She embraces El Topo.
El Topo mounts his horse and pulls her
up to him.
Brontis grabs at El Topo's foot.
El Topo kicks him in the mouth.
EL TOPO
Destroy me.
You no longer depend on
anyone.
El Topo gallops off, leaving his son behind with
the Four Monks.
Brontis' mouth is bleeding. One of the
Monks speaks to Brontis.
MONK
(in a high, feminine voice)
Cry, child.
Cry so he will pity you.
The child does not cry. His face is impassive.
Quite suddenly, we see him dressed in a monk's
habit.
