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Again, not quite knowing where to put this, into the main forum it goes!

My first encounter with Jodorowsky was when I saw the trailer for his 1989 movie, Santa Sangre.  A strange and brutal pastiche of images including a tattooed woman, a boy with a fresh and bloody eagle tattooed across his chest, and an armless woman, all served to make me wonder what the heck this movie was.  My girlfriend at the time seemed oddly fascinated by this graphic yet enthralling trailer, and we talked about seeing it, although this never happened.  It was not until many years later that our local international TV station screened Santa Sangre, and I found out just how bizarre it was.  This, I believe, is the trailer we saw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR6NeM3-wOE

These were the wild and wooly pre-internet days, when information about outre and foreign films could only be found in books, or small distribution 'zines at comic shops.  There I learned of another movie by Jodorowsky, called El Topo.  It starred Jodorowsky himself as a gunfighter, challenging one gunslinger after another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceHH3QGXvNw

Just this morning, I learned of two other Jodorowsky movies, The Holy Mountain (1973) and his unmade version of Frank Herbert's Dune!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_k8oaeHsnc

For Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky had his cast do months of spiritual exercises, and then take LSD for the final acts!  I'm struck by a similarity between some parts of this trailer and the 'trip' scenes in Altered States.

As for Dune, that movie was never made, but a new upcoming documentary brings this almost unbelievable possibility to life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dywGFB6-VzY

Anyone actually into his movies?  I find them distasteful and bizarre, but oddly fascinating at the same time.  Kind of like watching a snake giving birth, or eating a mouse.

Yep. I just submitted a list of favorite weird films to a new magazine called "Film Panic" and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN was on it.

I don't like the animal cruelty in EL TOPO, and Jodoworsky has apologized for it. Other than that the only thing that seriously bothers me about him is his massive ego. But that ego is what encourages him put that over-the-top stuff into his movies that would make other directors chicken out.  There's a story that says interviewer asked him what was in his mind when he was making THE HOLY MOUNTAIN. He answered, "I don't make movies with my mind, I make movies with my balls!"

SANTA SANGRE is probably the best for introducing someone to him. The story's easy to follow, it's really pretty accessible.

Other than the three you mentioned, FANDO Y LIS is his best known movie. It's black and white and from the beginning of his career. I think it's almost completely random. He didn't have artistic control on the other two films he directed and they aren't considered very interesting.

He's been working on a sequel to EL TOPO for years. I used to think there is zero chance it was going to get made, especially now that he's 84 years old, but he says he'll be starting it immediately. We'll see.

He did just complete his first movie in over 20 years, an autobiography called THE DANCE OF REALITY. It's screening at Cannes in a month along with a documentary on his DUNE project. 

Didn't really care for El Topo, but The Holy Mountain was spiritual, recommend watching it.

I read an interview with him in a 1973 Castle of Frankenstein magazine-he sounded very arty and fake.I liked EL TOPO for all the wrong reasons,though.

I bought a Jodorowsky DVD boxed set a few years ago.  The only movie I have watched so far is EL TOPO.  I thought it was visually stunning, but I didn't love it enough to dive into the other movies in the set.  I'll watch them all someday, though.

The first half of "Holy Mountain" is incredibly bizarre and entertaining.  After that it starts to bog down and the mentioned self-importance interferes with me enjoying the film.  I love "El Topo" for it's weirdness, but "Holy Mountain" had it beaten all the way up to the halfway point.


http://www.badmovies.org/movies/eltopo/ (http://www.badmovies.org/movies/eltopo/)

I don't know which part of "Holy Mountain" to like better: Jesus getting drunk, being duplicated in plaster, and then going on an icon smashing rampage befitting of a WWE event, or the whole weird section where the Aztec toad kingdom is invaded by conquistador toads and eventually explodes.

Just weird stuff, though I think I like it best because I do understand at least part of the messages that Jodorowsky was trying to send.  I doubt I would ever understand the complete message.

Came across this last night.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151135340884319
Supposedly based on Jodorowski's vision of Dune.
I can't tell what's going on, but I'm sure it would've been trippy.

That's an ad for Pioneer???  Wow.  H.R. Giger at his perverse best.

Looked it up since I posted that.
Apparently, it was Giger's idea for the Harkonin castle.