This film may be rarely shown elsewhere, but it has never been hard to see in Toronto. It's been screened on a semi-regular basis at the Bloor Cinema for the past 20 years or so. But last night was the first exposure for me.
Luis Buñuel had a significant career in Mexico through the '50's up to the mid-'60's. Perhaps there is some direct connection to director Alejandro Jodorowsky, perhaps not. But this film has a very strong flavour of Buñuel, his religious themes, his absurdity. I think the profoundest parallels may lie in "L'âge d'or" (1930), but there seem to be allusions to "Un chien andalou" (1929) and maybe echoes of "La voie lactée" (1969) too. Perhaps others even.
How is a sheep on a tower like a cow elevated on a bed? They're both incongruous and ridiculous. One is Jodorowsky, one is Buñuel. Or a crucified sheep on a wall vs. a dead donkey on a piano. A swarm of bees, a handful of ants. Incongruous would also be the victrola which appears a couple of times, or the butterfly net. They both remind me anyway of the tennis racquet -- that mocking symbol of French civilization in decline -- from "Un chien andalou".
Jodorowsky's character of the Colonel bears quite a resemblance once he's fully dressed to the officer in the Germaine Dulac / Antonin Artaud film "La coquille et le clergyman" from 1927. Jodorowsky even has the Colonel sit in a confessional at one point, for goodness' sake.
So that's why I think this film in its early stages at least is a conscious homage to the great French surrealist films. Certainly that piggyback amputee composite character is one that Buñuel must have wished he (or Dalí) had thought of. Go for your gun!
The rest extrapolates from and carries on that absurdist style, incorporating the sexuality, the shocks from that artistic movement, and adding the enhanced violence of the 1960's.
What does "El topo" mean? With its fertility symbols, its old whores. Goats represent the souls of the wicked, according to a verse in St. Matthew. Could that be relevant? Maybe.
Well, what did any of those influential films of the 1920's "mean"? At that time, they were on assault on conventionality, established norms, bourgeois values.
Precise meaning may not be the point.
But I can certainly tell you what got the biggest laugh from the audience
last night -- the cactus pear scene. Even bigger than the iguanas, if you can believe it. Hi-ho, Silver!
Luis Buñuel had a significant career in Mexico through the '50's up to the mid-'60's. Perhaps there is some direct connection to director Alejandro Jodorowsky, perhaps not. But this film has a very strong flavour of Buñuel, his religious themes, his absurdity. I think the profoundest parallels may lie in "L'âge d'or" (1930), but there seem to be allusions to "Un chien andalou" (1929) and maybe echoes of "La voie lactée" (1969) too. Perhaps others even.
How is a sheep on a tower like a cow elevated on a bed? They're both incongruous and ridiculous. One is Jodorowsky, one is Buñuel. Or a crucified sheep on a wall vs. a dead donkey on a piano. A swarm of bees, a handful of ants. Incongruous would also be the victrola which appears a couple of times, or the butterfly net. They both remind me anyway of the tennis racquet -- that mocking symbol of French civilization in decline -- from "Un chien andalou".
Jodorowsky's character of the Colonel bears quite a resemblance once he's fully dressed to the officer in the Germaine Dulac / Antonin Artaud film "La coquille et le clergyman" from 1927. Jodorowsky even has the Colonel sit in a confessional at one point, for goodness' sake.
So that's why I think this film in its early stages at least is a conscious homage to the great French surrealist films. Certainly that piggyback amputee composite character is one that Buñuel must have wished he (or Dalí) had thought of. Go for your gun!
The rest extrapolates from and carries on that absurdist style, incorporating the sexuality, the shocks from that artistic movement, and adding the enhanced violence of the 1960's.
What does "El topo" mean? With its fertility symbols, its old whores. Goats represent the souls of the wicked, according to a verse in St. Matthew. Could that be relevant? Maybe.
Well, what did any of those influential films of the 1920's "mean"? At that time, they were on assault on conventionality, established norms, bourgeois values.
Precise meaning may not be the point.
But I can certainly tell you what got the biggest laugh from the audience
last night -- the cactus pear scene. Even bigger than the iguanas, if you can believe it. Hi-ho, Silver!