Parts of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 dreamscape might look dated but its superlative weirdness remains undimmed
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 film is now revived in
UK cinemas: a plumply overripe fruit of the counterculture, dripping with the juices of spiritual rebellion, semi-comic posturing, consciousness-raising and all-around freakiness. Hardly a moment passes in this movie without a situationist display of outrageousness; it is a dream tableau of the weird and occasionally wonderful.
Unlike his celebrated breakthrough El Topo, this is less like a spaghetti-LSD western and is more urban, notionally more political, and more satirical. But the key Jodorowsky tropes are still there: the absurdism, the hedonism, the tarot mysticism. Some of the group-nudity scenes reminded me of the stoned hippy in David Lodge’s novel Changing Places talking about establishing “a socialism of the emotions”.