The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis / El Topo / The Holy Mountain)
by Alejandro Jodorowsky
List Price:
Our Price: $19.99
You Save: $29.98 (60%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $19.97 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Alejandro JodorowskyDirector: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Brand: JODORWSKY,ALEJANDRO
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Published)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 333 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
DVD Reviews of The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis / El Topo / The Holy Mountain)
DVD Review: From out of the depths
Summary: 5 Stars
Rescued at long last from inaccessibility, "El Topo" lives up to its reputation as one of the great idiosyncratic "art films" of all time, filled with amazing -- even astonishing -- imagery and enhanced by the director's own haunting musical score. A tour de force for Alejandro Jodorowsky and a genuine must for anyone who enjoys adventurous, maverick moviemaking. Once seen, NEVER FORGOTTEN.DVD Review: Youll never expect
Summary: 5 Stars
whats coming next in these movies which is why there so great!
youll be surprised and amazed. these films are incredulous.
DVD Review: Real art
Summary: 5 Stars
The Holy Mountain is really the only movie you need to see (and I mean among all films ever made). El Topo and Fando y Lis are almost variations on or preperations for the Holy Mountain, but they are still worth seeing in their own rite. I wouldn't recommend this entire box set unless you are a die hard Jodorowsky fan or a surreal film buff. If you are a surreal film buff I recommend you lower your dose of movies and start engaging with the world more. The cd's are kind of useless, but in general you get more than you pay for with this box set, so if you must buy it you won't be disappointed. Jodorowsky is a rare and genuine artist.DVD Review: Amazing - truly visionary
Summary: 4 Stars
If you are looking for a CGI'd Bruce Willis to rapel through a skylight to rescue Julia Roberts with Chandler from Friends as a witty sidekick - I stongly suggest you find another collection to buy. Jodorowsky outwierds the wierdest, but the incredible technical excellence keeps these features quite watchable. There is no doubt that these are low budget "head" movies, but the director has a true vision and he sticks with it. Jordorwsky seems to want to communicate and interact with the audience, but he doesnt seem condecending the way some art house films can be. The Holy Mountain is more of a collection of vignettes, while El Topo follows a definate narrative. A new favorite of mine. DVD Review: Just a little bizarre...
Summary: 4 Stars
By its very nature, art is subjective. What seems like art to one person may just be drivel to another. The inherent difficulty in defining art makes it easy to hide behind it as a label for almost any act of real or faked creativity. Which makes judgment of the DVD boxed set, The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky, complicated. Is Jodorowsky a true cinematic artist, or is he just a producer of New-Age-ish gobbledygook? Opinions vary.
The most prominent of Jodorowsky's movies is El Topo (Spanish for "The Mole") which at least initially has the look of a Spaghetti Western. A man-in-black gunfighter travels by horse with his naked son. (Why is he naked? There may be a symbolic reason, but don't look for much in the way of literal explanations in Jodorowsky's works.) The gunfighter comes across a massacre and deals with the killers, and takes a lover who provokes him to take on the four Master Gunfighters, a challenge that will lead to unintended consequences. Among the three movies in the set, El Topo is the most easily accessible for the casual viewer, but it is also more than a little weird: one master gunfighter is blind and attended to by two men, one armless and one legless who together act as one person (in fact, Jodorowsky has many "freaks" in his films, and like his predecessor Tod Browning, typically views them as people of virtue); another gunfighter lives in a secluded, incestuous relationship with his mother.
Made prior to El Topo is Fando y Lis, a tale of a couple who are on a journey to a mystical holy city called Tar. Fando is a man tormented by what is probably sexual impotence and takes out his rage with various cruelties to his girlfriend, the paraplegic Lis. Their journey is akin to a trip through hell as they wander a blighted landscape and encounter various madmen and villains. The farther they go, the meaner Fando gets; in a way, it is the typical abuser-abusee relationship with him apologetic for his sins and her taking his abuse because she's utterly dependent on him.
Strangest of all the movies is The Holy Mountain, a strange mix of various religious and pseudoscientific (like astrology, tarot and alchemy) ideas. A thief who is also a Christ-like figure wanders a city and eventually comes into the lair of an alchemist who offers enlightenment. The thief will join a band of other people (each representing a different planet) on an excursion to The Holy Mountain where immortality awaits.
There are some themes that run through these three movies, particularly the search for spiritual enlightenment. The outsiders in society - such as freaks and prostitutes - are generally forces of good, while establishment figures - especially the idle rich - are monsters. But generally, the movies are so abstract that each person will get his or her own meaning out of it.
In addition to the three movies, the set does have a lot of extras, including commentaries, trailers, two soundtrack CDs (for El Topo and The Holy Mountain), a short film, La Cravate which is Jodorowsky's first work (and which, though strange, is also rather straightforward) and a documentary La Constellation - Jodorowsky, which adoringly treats the director as something of a modern guru.
These films are not for everyone. If you find David Lynch too odd for your tastes, than you should skip Jodorowsky. Also, although these films are unrated, it is safe to say that if they were, they'd likely be NC-17, so they are not family films. Personally, I liked the films, though I agree with one critic who pointed out more-or-less that just because something is beyond comprehension doesn't make it profound. I found the best way to enjoy these movies is to not try and make sense of them and just take pleasure in the visual spectacle and sheer bizarreness of them. And visually, these are fantastic movies unlike anything else out there.
Description of The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis / El Topo / The Holy Mountain)
Fando and his partially paralyzed lover Lis search for the mythical city of Tar; el Topo searches the desert to defeat four master gunmen and to find enlightenment; an alchemist assembles a group of people from all walks of life to prepare them for the trip to Lotus Island where they will ascend the holy mountain to displace the gods who rule the universe.ip to Lotus Island where they will ascend the holy mountain to displace the gods who rule the universe.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: UN
Release Date: 1-MAY-2007
Media Type: DVD
How can so much mysticism be contained in a simple DVD box set? The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky is a divine collection of the director's early films, restored and ready for repeated viewings. For it does take several viewings to imbue Jodorowky's invented archetypes with personal meaning and to familiarize oneself with his avant-garde approach to communicating artistic concepts. In this box, El Topo and Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky's stories of spiritual journeys through barren deserts, are paired with Fando Y Lis and La Cravate, a never before seen gem from the 1950s. This alone justifies the box set. La Cravate is a Technicolor tale of a man whose sadistic girfriend urges him to visit the head shop to shop for a new head. Miming his way through rows of living human heads, and trying several on with the help of a shop manager skilled in stitching skin, this Frankensteinian story establishes Jodorowsky's affinity for pitting effusive love against cruelty for maximum tension between involved characters. Fando Y Lis, on the other hand, is an early version of the later two masterpieces, about a couple whose quest for an imaginary land in the future, called Tar, introduces them to wizened forest masters, wild packs of women bowling, and enlightened drag queens. Filmed in black and white, Fando Y Lis proves that Jodorowsky's radical use of color in El Topo and Holy Mountain is no simple trope. Here, he relies more heavily on dramatic physical action, including miming and a paraplegic protagonist who is wheeled around in a wagon by her lover.
The box set contains the film soundtracks, director commentaries, and several interviews with Jodorowsky, including the documentary, La Constellation, in which he discusses his reliance on intuition, the notion of absurdism versus mystery, and his infamous usage of violence, which he eloquently explains as creative violence versus the destructive. Though this talented director refuses the claim that he is a mystic, it becomes clear in watching this body of work that he is achieving the sublime in a visually transcendental fashion. --Trinie Dalton
General DVDs
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Bestsellers in General DVDs
PersepolisSony; Release date: 2008-06-24; DVD
Best price: $16.33
Price in other shops:
AmelieTAUTOU,AUDREY; Release date: 2002-07-16; DVD
Best price: $10.62
Price in other shops:
Death Note (Live Action - Dub & Sub)DEATH NOTE MOVIE #1 (DVD MOVIE); Release date: 2008-09-16; DVD
Best price: $15.63
Price in other shops:
The Red Balloon (Released by Janus Films, in association with the Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2008-04-29; DVD
Best price: $8.20
Price in other shops:
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom - Criterion CollectionRelease date: 2008-08-26; DVD
Best price: $27.36
Price in other shops:
Fawlty Towers - The Complete SeriesRelease date: 2001-10-16; DVD
Best price: $34.32
Price in other shops:
Chocolat (Miramax Collector's Series)BINOCHE,JULIETTE; Release date: 2001-08-07; DVD
Best price: $5.22
Price in other shops:
BellaBELLA (DVD MOVIE); Release date: 2008-05-06; DVD
Best price: $11.94
Price in other shops:
The Ultimate GiftTWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2007-08-21; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Prison Break - Season 3TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-08-12; DVD
Best price: $29.89
Price in other shops:
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Three Films By Hiroshi Teshigahara (Pitfall / Woman In The Dunes / The Face Of Another) (Criterion Collection)Release date: 2007-07-10; DVD
Best price: $43.99
Price in other shops:
Ace in the Hole - Criterion CollectionRelease date: 2007-07-17; DVD
Best price: $24.94
Price in other shops:
La Jetee/ Sans Soleil (Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-06-26; DVD
Best price: $24.95
Price in other shops:
Anarchy and Alchemy: The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Persistence of Vision)by Ben Cobb
Creation Books; Published: 2007-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.96
Price in other shops:
The Mario Bava Collection, Volume 1 (Black Sunday / Black Sabbath / The Girl Who Knew Too Much / Kill Baby Kill / Knives of the Avenger)STARZ HOME ENTERTAINMENT; Release date: 2007-04-03; DVD
Best price: $23.45
Price in other shops:
Sweet Movie (Criterion Collection)CLEMENTI/PRUCNAL; Release date: 2007-06-19; DVD
Best price: $20.29
Price in other shops:
If... (Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-06-19; DVD
Best price: $27.22
Price in other shops:
The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 2Release date: 2007-10-02; DVD
Best price: $17.66
Price in other shops:
The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 1Release date: 2007-01-23; DVD
Best price: $19.98
Price in other shops:
David Lynch's Inland Empire (Limited Edition Two-Disc Set)Ryko Distribution; Release date: 2007-08-14; DVD
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops: