PART THREE
El Topo dismounts and approaches
the Master.
The Master approaches
El Topo on foot, slowly.
Suddenly, the Master falls
into the trap El Topo had dug the night before.
As he falls, El Topo shoots
him in the head.
Slow motion image of the
Master, his long hair flowing,
riding a white horse like
an angel.
The Double Man screams
in desperation when he sees the trick.
El Topo throws away his
revolver in self-disgust. Mara picks it up
and shoots the Double
Man. The Legless Man falls to the ground
and writhes like a worm.
The Armless Man tries to strike Mara but
lacks the arms to do so.
Nor does he have the hands to draw his pistol.
He kicks at her furiously.
Mara, laughing hysterically, takes the pistol
from the Armless Man's
holster and shoots him in the stomach and
head with his own weapon.
The Legless Man crawls to the Master.
He takes the Master's
revolver and tries to shoot El Topo.
El Topo struggles with
him. Mara kills the Legless Man with a single shot.
Mara tries to embrace El
Topo, but he rejects her. He picks up the
Legless Man's body, carries
it to the body of the Armless Man and
places it by the side
so that the two dead men form a single body.
Mara, splattered with
blood, approaches El Topo and kisses him.
MARA
I told you you could win.
I am proud of you.
Now you only have three
Masters left.
El Topo rides off
with
Mara as fast as he can. Mara's blouse is stained with blood.
The Woman in Black rides
over to the First Master's body. She takes out
her revolver and shoots
him in the head. She rides away.
El Topo and Mara come to
the oasis. Mara dismounts, runs ahead of El Topo
and throws herself into
the pool to wash the blood off her clothes.
[Mara and El Topo are like
two gigantic hands
entering a gigantic wash
basin. Perhaps they are
the two hands of Pontius
Pilate.]
The Woman in Black rides
up. She approaches El Topo,
who sits at the edge of
the pool. El Topo draws his pistol.
WOMAN IN
BLACK
I know where the Second
Master lives.
If you let me go with
you, I can lead you to him.
El Topo nods. He is exhausted.
Mara stands nude, waist-deep
in the pool.
She holds the open black
umbrella over her head.
The Woman in Black stands
at the edge of the pool.
She is nude except for
her boots.
She holds the lotus blossom
mirror over her sex.
The Woman in Black wades
toward Mara, bringing her the mirror.
The Woman opens her mouth,
revealing two pebbles on her tongue,
one dark and one light.
Mara gently lifts the stones from her tongue.
Mara takes the mirror
and looks at herself. For the first time, she discovers
her face, her physical
being. A strong self-love is aroused in her. She begins
to turn in the water,
gazing at herself in the mirror. She appears fully clothed,
with heavy eye makeup,
still turning in the water, looking at herself in the mirror.
[The scene should remind
us of the moment Narcissus
saw himself reflected
in the water for the first time.]
Sand. Smooth and
glistening. A foot emerges from the sand, then a leg.
Two bodies. El Topo
is on top of Mara. They are fused with the sand.
He kisses her breasts.
He licks her nose. He possesses her.
Mara does not surrender
herself. She lets El Topo go through the
motions of lovemaking
while she contemplates herself in the mirror.
The Woman in Black leads
El Topo and Mara through the desert.
El Topo follows her on
his horse. Behind El Topo, Mara rides
the First Master's white
horse and gazes at herself in the mirror.
El Topo takes out his
revolver and, with one bullet, shoots the mirror
out of Mara's hand. Mara
picks up some of the shattered fragments.
El Topo motions her to
give them to him, and she does. El Topo places the
fragments of glass in
the pocket of his jacket, and the journey continues.
The three travelers come to some strange lunar dunes of white earth.
WOMAN IN
BLACK
It's here.
EL TOPO
Wait for me.
El Topo dismounts and walks
toward the dunes.
He will challenge the
Second Master alone.
He jumps down into a ravine
and comes to a small stream.
[Water in the desert!]
The stream borders a small
peninsula. A gypsy wagon stands on the peninsula.
A lion, rather than a
horse, is tied to the wagon. In front of the wagon
are piles of Oriental
pillows and a Persian carpet. On the carpet is a table.
On top of the table
are Tarot cards arranged in the form of a cross and a large
hashish pipe. On
the side of the table hangs a crucified owl. Next to the table the
Second Master's Mother
sits reading the Tarot. When she sees El Topo, she
speaks.
MOTHER
(with a man's voice)
We've been waiting for
you.
This is what the cards
say about you.
You are falling. You'll
fall even deeper.
The deeper you fall, the
higher you will rise.
Traitor, coward, murderer.
God's orders are inexplicable.
My son and I must respect
you.
You may fight him.
Cross over.
El Topo tries to cross
the stream. With his first step, he sinks into
a kind of sandy mud. He
continues crossing and sinks into the mud
up to his knees. The crossing
is very difficult.
[We should think of crossing a magic threshold, of a new baptism.]
Finally, he reaches the
other side.
The Mother speaks, without
moving her lips.
[Perhaps the words come from her eyes.]
MOTHER
The duel begins at this
moment.
My son and you can fire
when you wish.
El Topo cautiously approaches
the Second Master.
The Second Master is young,
about twenty-eight.
[He could also be a young man of 150.]
He is reclining on the
Oriental pillows. He plays with a model of the
Pyramid of Cheops, made
of toothpicks. An old revolver in a holster
hangs precisely at the
level of his sex. The Second Master gets up lazily
and confronts El Topo.
El Topo tries to fire, but the Second Master, with
extraordinary speed, shoots
the gun out of El Topo's hand. El Topo is defeated.
The Second Master
playfully points his gun at El Topo's hand.
But instead of firing,
he yells like a child.
SECOND MASTER
Bang! You're dead.
(mumbling)
Technically ... Now I
want to talk to the dead man.
Among the white clay cliffs,
the workshop of the Second Master.
He finishes hammering
out a copper plate.
He shows El Topo several
delicate objects made of toothpicks.
SECOND MASTER
First I worked copper
objects
and strengthened my fingers.
Now my fingers are so
strong that
I can play with these
delicate forms
without breaking them.
The Second Master picks
up another model of the Pyramid of Cheops
and plays with it. He
offers it to El Topo. El Topo takes it in his hands.
His hands clumsily destroy
the delicate form. The Second Master laughs.
The Second Master places
two structures made of toothpicks side by side
in front of El Topo, several
feet away. They are two six-pointed stars,
designed cubically, painted
red. The Second Master's Mother
places a revolver at El
Topo's temple to prevent him
from tricking her son.
She hands him his pistol.
MOTHER
Fire.
El Topo fires at one of
the stars and completely destroys it without
touching the star next
to it. The Second Master stands beside the lion.
His Persian lamb coat
is the same color as the lion.
[The Second Master probably is a lion.]
The Second Master fires
at his star.
At first glance, he seems
to have missed.
But he goes over to the
star and picks up a tiny piece of wood.
His bullet has broken
only one toothpick without destroying the object.
SECOND MASTER
A clean shot. Delicate.
It destroys the necessary.
The Second Master jumps
in front of El Topo. At the level of his
navel he wears an iron
rivet belt. The buckle is shaped like an eye.
The center of the eye,
like a pupil, is a circular piece of copper.
The rivets are silver
plated. The Master blows in El Topo's face.
He yells in El Topo's
face as the Zen Masters yell at their students
to awaken them.
He strikes El Topo, throwing him to the ground.
The Master jumps on top
of him, twists his arms, hits him,
almost pulls his beard
off. El Topo doesn't defend himself.
He is defeated.
SECOND MASTER
(as he hits El Topo)
You shoot to find yourself.
I shoot to disappear.
Perfection is losing yourself.
And to lose yourself,
you have to love.
You don't love.
You destroy. You murder.
And no one loves you,
because when you
think are giving, you
are really taking away.
The Second Master throws
himself violently on El Topo.
The two fall at the feet
of the Second Master's Mother,
who sits beside the table.
Her face has the same expression
as the owl crucified on
the wooden table.
The Second Master kisses
the Mother's feet. He caresses her hand.
SECOND MASTER
I've surrendered myself
to her. I've given her everything.
She is within me.
Her infinite love fills me.
Whatever I do and say
are dictated and sanctified by her.
I detest anything that
is mine because
it removes me from her
Divine Presence.
The Second Master walks
over to El Topo, who still lies on his back.
The Master lies on top
of him.
He embraces and kisses
him, not sexually, but with extra-human love.
MOTHER
(without moving her lips)
Two are better than one.
For if they fall, the
other will lift up his fellow.
But woe to him that is
alone when he falleth;
for he hath not another
to help him up.
The Master raises El Topo
up. El Topo is embarrassed and
hurt, physically and spiritually.
The Master takes a small
copper ashtray from the
table and shows it to El Topo.
SECOND MASTER
When I made it, I didn't
think about it's being of any use.
I simply made it the best
I could.
He ceremoniously gives
it to El Topo. It falls from El Topo's hands.
El Topo stoops down to
pick it up while the Second Master,
distracted, caresses his
Mother. The sight of the Mother's
naked foot gives El Topo
an idea, and he reaches
into his pocket for some
of the broken glass
from Mara's mirror and
places it on the ground.
MOTHER
(to El Topo)
Here is your revolver.
My son wishes to give
you a last chance.
The Mother stands and walks
toward El Topo to hand him the revolver.
Suddenly she opens her
mouth and screams. It is not a human scream,
but bird cries. She has
cut her foot on a fragment of the mirror.
The Second Master, unaware
of anything but his mother's pain,
bends over her to remove
the glass from the sole of her foot.
El Topo takes advantage
of the moment to place his revolver
at the back of the Master's
neck. He picks up the copper ashtray,
puts it inside his shirt,
takes the Second Master's gun from him and fires.
The Mother shrieks like
a wounded bird. The Master staggers away.
El Topo follows and shoots
him in the back. The Master falls to the ground.
The Mother limps over
and throws herself on top of him. Her shrieks become
more intense. The Second
Master has died. El Topo runs for the stream.
He throws the Second Master's
revolver to the ground.
His feet sink in the mud
of the stream.
El Topo rests against the
white horse that is lying on the sand.
He is suffering.
Mara and the Woman in Black are talking.
MARA
I don't want you to go
near him!
Why are you following
us? Go away!
The two women are on horseback,
fighting each other with whips.
The Woman in Black is
much more agile than Mara, and she violently
whips Mara across the
back. Mara falls from the horse. She drags
herself along the sand.
Relentlessly, the Woman in Black continues to
lash Mara's back.
Mara acknowledges her defeat. The Woman in Black
slowly raises Mara's blouse.
She kisses the wounds, then with bloody
lips, kisses Mara on the
mouth. Mara feels pleasurable relief, pain,
sexual excitation, perhaps
without realizing it.
Another desert location.
A black crow pecks at
the ears of a dead white rabbit.
[Black, white and red: alchemist colors.]
El Topo rides up, followed
by the two women who now ride side by side.
He tells them to wait
for him. He dismounts and looks at the crow.
The crow cocks its head
toward another part of the desert.
El Topo walks in that
direction.
He sees a beautiful long-haired
white rabbit with a string tied around its neck.
El Topo picks up the rabbit
and begins winding the string around his arm.
The string will lead him
through the labyrinths of the dunes toward the Third Master.
[Parallel between the string
tied to the rabbit and the thread
with which Ariadne led
Theseus through the labyrinth.]
El Topo comes to a low
rectangular picket fence.
Inside the fence are a
canvas lean-to and hundreds of rabbits.
In the center of the rectangular
enclosure is a cement watering trough.
It is oval like the halos
that encircle the virgins in certain Medieval paintings.
Music is heard.
It sounds like a metal flute.
El Topo takes his revolver
from its holster and tosses it over the fence.
He raises his hands, steps
over the fence and walks among the rabbits.
El Topo sees a beautiful
dark Mexican Indian sitting under the lean-to.
The Third Master.
He is playing music by blowing into the barrel of his revolver.
The Master stops playing
and speaks to El Topo.
THIRD MASTER
You didn't have to drop
your gun.
I don't distrust you.
The Third Master invites
El Topo to sit at his side, in the shade.
All the rabbits cluster
around the two men like a little white lake.
The Master takes El Topo's
flute from his jacket and hands it to him.
THIRD MASTER
You have a flute!
We'll come to know each
other through music.
He takes a primitive violin
from a canvas bag
hanging from the lean-to
and begins to play.
El Topo plays his flute.
A beautiful duet is heard.
THIRD MASTER
You loathe yourself.
You no longer want to
cheat.
You want to respect the
law.
Some people offer flowers,
other valuable gifts.
You offer me your life.
You don't fear death anymore.
That's why you're a dangerous
enemy.
The master replaces the
violin in the canvas bag and motions El Topo to
follow him. They
walk along the rectangular corral, which is divided into
two squares by the oval
pool. The rabbits are dying as though
attacked by a plague.
The ground is sown with dead rabbits.
The Third Master picks
up El Topo's pistol and hands it to him.
THIRD MASTER
When you were seven meters
from the corral,
my rabbits began to die.
Now almost all of them are dead.
Now that you're here,
not one of them will survive.
The Master hands his pistol to El Topo.
THIRD MASTER
It's made from a piece
of wood and a piece of iron.
A very simple gun, but
made very well.
I made it myself.
Do you feel its fine lines?
It can fire only one shot.
That's all I need.
One bullet. Always
fatal.
The Master takes back his
pistol and places it at El Topo's heart.
Almost all of the rabbits
are dead.
Only three or four remain
alive.
Two crows devour the cadavers
of the animals.
THIRD MASTER
Shoot.
The two fire simultaneously,
and the two crows explode.
The Master walks over
to the crows, stoops down and picks them up.
THIRD MASTER
Can you tell which one
you killed and which one I killed?
El Topo shakes his head.
THIRD MASTER
This one is yours.
It was shot through the head.
This one is mine.
It was shot through the heart.
He stands up.
He lays one of the bloody crows against
El Topo's heart and the
other against his forehead.
THIRD MASTER
The heart. The head.
Switch them around.
He switches the positions
of the dead crows, laying the one that
was on El Topo's heart
against his head, and the one that was
on his head against his
heart. He tosses the cadavers away.
THIRD MASTER
It's time.
El Topo and the Master
walks to opposite ends of the corral. They open
their arms, forming crosses
with their bodies. They advance toward
each other, holding their
revolvers in their hands. When they reach the
center of the corral,
separated only by the oval trough, El Topo takes aim.
His movement is almost
deliberately slow. The Master fires and shoots
El Topo in the heart.
He falls. He agonizes in pain for a moment,
but then rises to his
feet, laughing. The Third Master cannot
understand why El Topo
hasn't died. El Topo continues laughing
as he aims his revolver
at the Third Master's head, then lowers
it to his heart and fires.
The Master falls into the oval pool.
The water turns
red instantaneously. The Third Master dies.
From the "wound" in his
chest, El Topo removes the copper ashtray
given him by the Second
Master that had protected him from the
Third Master's bullet.
He throws the ashtray into the oval pool.
EL TOPO
Too much perfection is
a mistake.
El Topo picks up the dead
rabbits and lays them on top of the Third Master's body.
A grave of rabbits. He
dips his hands into the pool, trying to cleanse them, but
the water has turned to
blood and the stains do not wash off. Mara runs up to
El Topo, ripping open
her blouse in an act of surrender to offer him her breasts.
El Topo rubs his hands
on her breasts, staining them with blood. He mounts
his horse and rides off
at a gallop. Mara runs after him crying and screaming.
MARA
Don't leave me!
You won!
You're going to be the
best! I'll help you!
El Topo, Mara and the Woman
in Black are sitting on the sand.
El Topo stares into space,
very unhappy. Mara looks at him.
The Woman in Black looks
at Mara. There are three prickly
pears on the ground. Suddenly
Mara feels the intense
gaze of the Woman in Black.
She looks at her. Her mouth
twitches involuntarily:
an ambiguous gesture of contempt
or surrender. The eyes
of the Woman in Black are
penetrating and desirous.
She picks up a prickly pear and,
her eyes fixed on Mara,
peels it as though she were opening
a woman's sex. She
opens it wider with her knife and rubs
it with her finger. She
licks it, turning the fruit into an obscenity.
She offers it to Mara.
Offended, Mara knocks it out of her hand.
The Woman in Black stands
up violently. She puts her knife
in Mara's hand as if to
say, "If you want to kill me, do it!"
Mara lacks the courage.
The Woman in Black grabs Mara and
kisses her on the mouth.
Mara is unable to resist and allows
herself to be embraced.
Then she pushes the Woman away.
She is sexually excited.
She throws herself on El Topo.
She rolls with him on
the sand and makes him take her
while the Woman in Black
looks on.
The three horses, two black and one white, trot off together.
A tall pole in the desert is all the Fourth Master has for a house.
[The possessions of the
Masters have been diminishing.
The First Master lived
in a tall tower,
the Second Master in a
wagon,
the Third Master in a
lean-to,
The Fourth Master has
only a pole in the
desert and a sheet covering
his body.
The First Master had two
revolvers,
the Second Master one
revolver that fired several shots.
the Third Master one revolver
that fired a single shot.
The Fourth Master has
no revolver, only a butterfly net.
The First Master had a
large oasis,
the Second Master a small
stream,
the Third Master an oval
pool.
The Fourth Master has
only sand in the desert.]
FOURTH MASTER
You want to fight me?
How do you plan to do
it?
I don't have a revolver.
He digs in the sand and pulls out an old rusty revolver that no longer works.
FOURTH MASTER
I trade my revolver for
a butterfly net.
You'll have to fight me
with your fists.
The Master assumes the
comic posture of an oldtime boxer.
He challenges El Topo.
FOURTH MASTER
Hit me. Hit me.
He pushes El Topo.
El Topo is disconcerted.
He decides to strike at
the old man. But he cannot land
his punches. The Master
dodges them with magical speed.
El Topo becomes impatient.
He tries some Karate blows.
All of them miss the Master.
Desperate, El Topo draws his gun,
as the Master picks up
his butterfly net, and fires. The Master catches
the bullet with his net
and sends it whizzing back to El Topo. The bullet
explodes near El Topo's
black boots. The Fourth Master laughs.
FOURTH MASTER
You see? My net
is mightier than your bullets.
The Master stops laughing.
FOURTH MASTER
If you fire again,
I'll return your own bullet
into your heart.
El Topo doesn't know whether
or not to believe him.
He starts toward him.
He tries to fire, but can't.
He knows he's been defeated.
He lets his revolver fall
to the ground.
The Fourth Master falls
to his knees with El Topo.
FOURTH MASTER
(gently)
How could you possibly
have won?
I don't fight. I
have nothing.
Even if you'd tricked
me,
you couldn't have taken
anything from me.
EL TOPO
Yes! I could have
taken your life.
FOURTH MASTER
My life? It means
nothing to me. I'll show you
He grabs El Topo's revolver
and shoots himself in the liver.
El Topo frantically takes
him in his arms.
FOURTH MASTER
You lost.
He dies.
El Topo cries out in pain
to the Heavens.
He tears at his clothes
and tugs at his beard.
He bolts like a madman.
[Think of The Song of Roland or of the madness of Don Quixote.]
He runs through the desert
toward the places where he left the bodies
of the other Masters.
He comes to the tomb of the Third Master where
he had left him covered
with rabbits. He tries to approach the grave,
but it bursts into flames.
He can't bear the heat and runs off.
[Parallel between the flaming grave of rabbits and Moses' Burning Bush.]
Completely crazed, El Topo
comes to the place of the Second Master.
He looks for the body.
One the very spot where the Master died,
he sees a huge structure
made of toothpicks. An irregular, deformed
pyramid built by lunatics.
El Topo tears down the toothpick walls
with the butt of his revolver.
Inside he finds the bodies of the
Second Master and his
mother, her arm around her son.
[The Mother probably built
the pyramid and
remained trapped inside
until she starved to death.]
El Topo continues runing
through the heart of the desert
until he comes to where
the First Master died.
He sees the skeleton of
the Master's two helpers.
Green plants have sprung
from their bones.
[Life springs from putrification: inspired by alchemic drawings.]
The trap into which the
first Master fell is filled with bright yellow honey.
The First Master's body
floats in the honey like a foetus.
El Topo falls to his knees,
picks up a piece of honeycomb
and squashes the cells
against his face,
filling his mouth with
honey and screaming desperately.
[The wax filled with honey
should also resemble
a piece of flesh full
of pus.]
El Topo appears inside
the octagonal tower of the First Master.
He beats against the walls,
trying to knock them down.
He feels trapped within
the bones of his skull and is beating
against his head from
within to open it into eight parts.
The lamb from the roof
of the tower is seen crucified to one
of the exterior walls.
El Topo manages to break open the
immense tower. The walls
fall outwardly like eight
stone petals. Standing
in the center of the fallen
tower, El Topo, liberated,
releases two doves,
which disappear into the
sky.
[Parallel between the two
doves that ascend
into the air and the alchemical
process of evaporation.]
El Topo holds a rock in his hand.
[Parallel with the acquisition of the Philosopher's Stone.]
He drops the rock on his
revolver,
smashing it into a thousand
pieces.
Mara runs up to him and
embraces him.
MARA
You won! You won!
You're the best!
Enraged, El Topo struggles
free from her grasp.
He raises his fist to
strike her, but feels no violence within him.
Gradually his fist becomes
a caress. He leaves Mara and runs off.
El Topo comes to a long
bridge that stretches a mile across a mile-deep precipice.
The wooden floor of the
bridge is rotten. The abyss can be seen through the holes of
the floor. El Topo walks
out onto the bridge. His voice is heard reciting a psalm.
EL TOPO'S
VOICE
I've been spilled like
water and my bones have been disjointed.
My heart has melted like
wax over the entrails of my body.
And my tongue has stuck
to my palate.
And You have placed me
in the shadow of death.
My God, my God, why hast
Thou forsaken me?
Why are You so distant
from my salvation and the words of my plea?
My God, I cry out by day
and You don't answer.
And by night and there
is no relief.
El Topo climbs out on the
catwalk of the bridge and leans facedown against
the suspension cables.
He opens his arms, forming a cross with his body.
He has decided to fall,
when a bullet explodes at his feet and snaps him out
of his reverie. He climbs
down to the floor of the bridge.
The Woman in Black throws
one of her gold revolvers at El Topo's feet
and challenges him to
a final duel on the bridge. El Topo bends down
and picks up the revolver.
He studies it. But the metal of the weapon
seems to burn his hands,
and he drops it. He lets it lie, straightens up,
extends his arms like
a cross and walks toward the Woman in Black.
She fires a bullet into
his right hand. El Topo doesn't defend himself.
She fires a bullet into
his left hand. El Topo doesn't defend himself.
She pierces the insteps
of both his feet. El Topo doesn't defend himself.
The first four wounds
of Christ. El Topo continues advancing
toward the Woman in Black.
His feet are now bare and bleeding.
He steps off the bridge
onto firm ground and waits, his arms still
extended like a cross.
The Woman in Black hands her revolver to Mara.
WOMAN IN
BLACK
It's either him or me!
Mara hesistates.
She has to choose between devoting herself
to El Topo or leaving
him forever for the Woman in Black.
Mara shoots El Topo in
the side. The fifth wound of Christ.
El Topo doubles up in
pain.
He sees the two women
ride off together on the same horse.
[Parallel between the two
women
and the Templar's symbol
of two men riding one horse.]
He sees their profiles
merge.
Slowly, their tongues
meet and fuse together at a single sensitive point.
Again, El Topo feels the
bullet in his side.
He sees the two women
kissing and scratching each other in a caress.
Again, he feels the bullet
in his side. He sees the two women making love.
El Topo gives in to death.
A band of crippled, insane,
retarded people wearing old army uniforms
approach the body of El
Topo, dragging a stretcher made of branches.
They lay El Topo on the
stretcher and carry him off.
El Topo's voice is heard
reciting other psalms.
EL TOPO'S
VOICE
Show me Your ways and
Your paths.
Guide me. For You
are the God of my salvation.
I have placed my trust
and my hope in You forever.
You will teach sinners
the way.
Your justice will guide
the humble.
