This blog post examines the core of how El Topo, transcending the framework of traditional Westerns, disrupts existing conventions and presents new interpretations.
On the ‘Western’ Genre
When examining its history, the Western genre is closely intertwined with American film history. It is a genre that first emerged in Hollywood and is uniquely American. Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903), known as America’s first film, already possesses the basic structure of the Western. The reason the Western became the most quintessentially American genre is its alignment with the American national spirit. Set in the limited timeframe from the 1850s to the 1890s, the Western depicts America’s modernization period—the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society—from the perspectives of capitalism and multiracialism.
The spectacular visuals unique to Westerns are particularly well-suited to expressing the charm of early cinema. The primary structure of classic Hollywood Westerns consists of a hero archetype and a black-and-white logic of good versus evil. This structure, based on the dichotomy where the protagonist is always good and the antagonist is always evil, allows audiences to easily identify with the hero. Audiences become captivated by the protagonist’s heroic qualities as they witness him overcome the predicaments created by villains with superhuman strength. This film structure is the most effective way to immerse simple-minded audiences in the film, as it is easy to understand and allows for straightforward situation setting. Consequently, many subsequent action films used this same plot to develop their works.
Notable examples include John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), Rio Grande (1950), The Covered Wagon (1950), High Noon (1952), and Shane (1953). The 1960s saw the emergence of revisionist Westerns, known as Spaghetti Westerns. The romance of the West was gone; films like The Magnificent Seven (1960) and A Fistful of Dollars (1964) replaced the spirit of the Western with a thrill derived from killing. The Western genre then entered a path of transformation and decline. The era of the Western seemed to have passed, but emerging from this crisis was Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven (1992). In this film, the ending where the former outlaw William Munny defeats the sheriff still maintains a heroic perspective, yet attempts a more distinctive approach. By the 1990s, the Western had firmly established itself as a ‘genre of reflection’. It now transcended being merely a genre to represent American history. Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider retraces that history, painting a tragic narrative, while many Hollywood road movies follow paths with meanings distinct from the Western’s pioneering trails.
‘The Gopher, El Topo’ Plot
There is a man. At the film’s opening, he appears riding a horse with a naked child. He instructs the child, his son, to bury a photograph of his mother and a doll in the desert. They continue riding and discover traces of a massacre in the village they reach. The man vows revenge on the villagers and castrates the perpetrator, ‘La Colonel’. Mara, a woman held captive by the Colonel, follows the man. He leaves his child behind in the village and sets off on the road with Mara. Mara wants the man to defeat four desert gunmen and become the best. He uses every means to defeat them, but Mara leaves, and he is abandoned in the desert, wounded. He is rescued by people living in seclusion in a cave he dug in a remote place. After waking from a coma, he digs the cave deeper for those who saved him, descends to the village, earns money, and lives. During this time, he reunites with his son, who has become a monk, and sacrifices himself. Ultimately, the son sets out again, dressed in his father’s clothes.
Genre Analysis of ‘The Gopher, El Topo’
‘The Gopher, El Topo’ is a cult-oriented Western. In fact, it was filmed on the abandoned set of the Western ‘The Day of the Evil Gun’ (1968). The film’s setting remains consistently a desolate desert, and the occasional villages that appear are destroyed by massacres or bandit raids. Above all, what defines ‘The Gopher, El Topo’ as a Western lies in its characterization. The distinction between good and evil is stark, and the protagonist always triumphs. Women exist as sexual objects, and the townspeople are portrayed as utterly weak. The overall story structure depicts the process of defeating desert adversaries through duels to become the ultimate victor.
Paradoxically, however, these genre conventions do not define the film’s character. The protagonist is not the typical invincible, absolutely virtuous, righteous hero of the Western. He uses cunning and manipulation to defeat opponents stronger than himself, and abandons his son to take a woman. The film is saturated with religious and philosophical messages, and the protagonist is in constant conflict. In other words, the Western genre serves as a device within the film to facilitate the protagonist’s awakening. The protagonist wanders the wilderness aimlessly, encountering enemies and engaging in duels. Through this process, he gains opportunities for introspection and awakens to himself.
‘The Gopher, El Topo’ Semantic Analysis
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘The Gopher, El Topo’ (El Topo) maintains an eerie atmosphere throughout. The protagonist shows no hesitation whatsoever in any of his actions. He fires his gun without a second thought, abandons his son in a remote village to take a woman with him, and uses cunning tactics without reservation when fighting opponents more skilled than himself. In these ways, he is far from a champion of justice or a human protagonist. Yet this very quality makes the protagonist, The Gopher, El Topo, appear human. He acts as survival demands, living true to his instincts and desires. The other characters are no different. The Colonel’s men mimic dogs to appease his anger, but when The Gopher, El Topo corners the Colonel, they immediately turn on him and insult him. The monks are humiliated by the Colonel’s men, yet they take pleasure in witnessing The Gopher, El Topo’s revenge. Mara constantly demands things from The Gopher, El Topo, but when another intriguing figure appears, she abandons the wounded The Gopher, El Topo and leaves. Thus, the characters in this film starkly reveal the hidden side of humanity. This makes the audience recoil at humanity’s hidden, instinctual nature while simultaneously prompting reflection on human essence.
The film’s title, “The Gopher, El Topo,” means ‘mole’ in Spanish. The story about a mole inserted midway through the film provides significant implications throughout. The mole, diligently digging toward the sunlight, eventually faces the sun and is instantly blinded. The protagonist proclaims himself a god. He draws water from rocks and finds sustenance in the middle of the desert. Yet, in his quest to become the greatest, he battles four sages, resorting to every underhanded trick to win. Though he ultimately becomes the strongest, he grows disillusioned with his own cowardice and realizes he is merely human, not a god. He helps the dwarves who saved him and sacrifices himself for them, but disillusioned by the corrupted world, he ultimately meets his end. No matter the method, humans remain human; they cannot become gods. In this regard, the protagonist and the gopher share many similarities. All humans are the same. Director Jodorowsky stated in an interview, “‘The Gopher, El Topo’ is a film that captures the journey itself of a human being walking the path of self-discovery.” The final scene of The Gopher, El Topo’s son departing with the dwarf woman and his infant brother signifies the archetypal nature of life: death is a process for new birth, and birth is a process for death. The circle has no end or beginning; it simply revolves. Life itself possesses the completeness of a circle.
Another notable aspect of this film concerns the roles of men and women. Women play the role of tempting men and leading them down the path of corruption. The film characteristically attempts to distinguish male and female roles by rendering the voices of powerless or servile men as feminine, while the voices of powerful and attractive women are rendered as masculine.
‘The Gopher, El Topo’ Movie Review
While watching ‘The Gopher, El Topo’, what struck me most intensely was a new discovery about humanity. Such extreme human behavior paradoxically felt more human. I also sensed the continuity of human life through the characters’ struggles to change their fate, their eventual frustration, their apparent collapse, and their will to rise again. It was astonishing how sex, homosexuality, violence, annihilation, and Christianity blended together against an unreal, dreamlike backdrop, clearly conveying a message about the political climate during the film’s production.
Honestly, while watching the film, I mostly found it absurd or burst out laughing. The protagonist’s ruthless or decisive actions, like extracting water from desert rocks or suddenly slapping the woman he was traveling with and stripping her naked, seemed like scenes you’d only expect in satirical comedy. More than contemplation, it was the protagonist’s comedic actions that resonated. But above all, what truly moved me about ‘The Gopher, El Topo’ were the fragments of realization that surfaced during the end credits. These thoughts, emerging one by one in the quiet, provided enlightenment and made the audience feel they had grown.
I recall director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s interview remark: “Living as myself can be difficult, but that’s because my imagination overflows endlessly, and I can pull out a powerful conclusion in an instant.” I could only envy the fact that he could endlessly imagine himself as a human being and convey the results to others through the medium of film.
