The movie follows El Topo, a black hat gunfighter who goes out with his young son to avenge the death of the mother. As the movie opens, El Topo has his son bury a picture of the mother, symbolically saying goodbye to his childhood and becoming a man. The two travel across the desert on horseback in search of vengeance.
After exacting their revenge, the father abandons the boy to the church before going back into the desert with his new lover. The woman insists that he kill the top four killers in the desert before she can love him, as such that she can truly be with the strongest man. They wander the sands for at least a decade trying to seek out all four of these men.
The four killers are each fascinating characters. There's one whose assistants are a man with no legs sitting on the shoulders of a man with no arms. Another is burly, strong man who is so incredibly strong and so incredibly in control of that strength that it allows him to build incredibly delicate, fragile structures and objects out of toothpicks, these objects which Topo cannot touch without destroying. The final master is an old man who uses a butterfly net to deflect bullets.
Eventually, El Topo must search for redemption after his girlfriend betrays him, putting him in a coma. He stays in a mountain for several years and wakes up to don a priestly robe and shave his head and become a saint. He hopes to repent for his sinful past, but must first find the capacity for forgiveness within his own soul.
He reunites with his son and finds that the religious life has just as many troubles as the life of a skillful killer, that the world is a harsh, difficult place no matter who you are or what your background.
The movie is deeply rooted in religious symbolism. There are so many different religions on display here, Buddhism, Catholicism, Judaism, that it really becomes its own thing, almost its own religion in a sense. Whatever it is, it's all Jodorowsky.
The movie feels incredibly eerie, it is incredibly violent, shocking, bizarre, it may offend you, but it will also enlighten you, it will elevate you and it will educate you. It is a story of hatred and of love, of revenge and of peace and forgiveness. The trailer says that it is "The single greatest experience of your life", and while that may be a little bit hyperbolic, you've never seen a movie quite like this.
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