A mysterious black-clad gunfighter (Alejandro Jodorowsky) wanders a mystical Western landscape encountering multiple bizarre characters.Phil Hardy wrote, "Rather in the manner of Federico Fellini, whose self-conscious conflation of the roles of charlatan and ringmaster of the unconscious Jodorowsky apes, the film is a breathtaking concoction of often striking, but more often ludicrous, images. The result is a movie that, though it impressed many at the time of its original release, in retrospect is clearly a minor, albeit often very funny work." Hardy is among good company. The critics largely thought it was an empty film, and it was rejected by the Academy to even be considered as a nominee for Foreign Film.Roger Ebert is more positive, including it as one of his Great Movies. And he is right. Alongside "Holy Mountain", Jodorowsky creates a world that must be seen to be believed. Maybe it can not all be understood and maybe it is not meant to be understood, but he was making beautiful and strange films years before the modern masters (e.g. Lynch) even got started.

I am a great admirer of directors/scriptwriters who understand religious works before they make films that refer to religion (e.g., Kieslowsky, Tarkovsky, Mallick, Reygadas, Bunuel, Bergman, Dreyer, etc.). Jodorowsky, in this film, proved that he neither knew Christian scriptures nor Buddhist philosophy. The only detail that showed some scholarship was the discussion on the Jewish name Marah. Jodorowsky was trying to be very erudite in calling sections of the film (a) genesis (b) the prophets (c) the psalms and (d) the apocalypse. While the first and the last section have some remote connection to the Bible, the screenplay proves Jodorowsky's total lack of knowledge to either parody or discuss the similarities with the narratives of his screenplay. What did Jodowsky's psalms have that related to/or referred even obliquely to the Psalms of David?His knowledge of the Oriental scriptures is equally muddled--one savant seems to be fascinated with Egyptology, building pyramids with sticks and having a man with no arms carrying another without any feet. Some have called the work surrealist--it would be that only if Jodorowsky had showed a glimpse of scholarship beyond the etymology of Marah. Even blood splattered walls do not look authentic, nor do visuals of pigs rushing out of an empty place of worship. This is immature cinema--Hollywood's "Freaks" was far superior in content and so was Bunuel's surrealist works that criticized organized religion.

I found this one a little difficult to follow, but at the same time it was quite a compelling watch. The connections between the three acts of the plot are, at times, quite hard to knit together, but it does all tie up in the end. Very bloody and quite daring (for its time) with quite a bit of nudity; I can imagine it was a little controversial, to say the least, on release. I won't say too much about the performances, but needless to say I couldn't find too much to complain about. I can't say I understood much of the religious allegory that was mentioned in the blurb, but it was entertaining enough.SteelMonster's verdict: RECOMMENDEDMy score: 6.3/10.You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

very boring movie... not a message, not technique, nothing interesting to see. Just trying to appear a high class movie..... The film was selected as the Mexican entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 44th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee..... Its official DVD release was in 2007. It copies some stuff from David Lynch, Korosawa, and the whole others but nothing new. Well, a lot of films don't have any interesting message, and you watch, just to be entertained, This movie even doesn't have that. The reason I didn't like this movie is that it tries to appear like a high class movie, which is not. It looks like a c**t in a temple, just inappropriate.