Synopsis

A bizarre, ultra-violent, allegorical Western, "El Topo" is set in two halves that have widely been compared to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. In the first half, Jodorowsky plays a violent, black-clad gunfighter who, accompanied by his naked son, sets off on a murderous mission to challenge four Zen masters of gunfighting, and learns from each of them a Great Lesson before they die. In the second half, El Topo sets out to find personal redemption, secluding himself in a subterranean community to learn the ways of peace, but unfortunately death is never far away. First released as an underground film, it was thanks to John Lennon that the film was acquired by Allen Klein of ABKCO, who bought the rights to "El Topo" and then financed Alejandro Jodorowsky's next film "The Holy Mountain."