movie review by brandon, the movie nerd: fando y lis

**1/2 out of *****

Alejandro Jodorowsky's first film nearly got him killed…literally.

When it premiered at the Alcupulco Film Festival, it's grotesque sexual/religious imagery caused a full-scale riot. As the crowd went after him, Jodorowsky had to sneak out to a waiting limo. The crowd discovered it as it was driving him away and pelted it with rocks. A week later it opened in Mexico City to sold-out crowds…but again, riots ensued. Mexico banned the film and very nearly deported Jodorowsky back to his native Chile.

Amidst all of this nonsense, people also began thinking Jodorowsky was a vampire. Filmmaker Sergio Klainer began spreading the rumor, and it didn't help that the movie has a blood-drinking scene, or that actress Diana Mariscal (Lis) was anorexic, so she was abnormally thin in public appearances. The American release didn't do much better…15 minutes were cut from the film, and it was derided as a rip-off of Fellini or Bunuel. How Jodorowsky went from this to celebrated director of El Topo and The Holy Mountain is almost as amazing as how fast he fell in the mid 70s.

But enough history, how is the actual movie? Unfortunately, not great. Jodorowsky based it on memories of a play he once saw, and the entire script was apparently one page long. Like his later films, it tells the story of a surreal journey…this time Fando and Lis. Fando is an immature, selfish prick with a drum made of his dad's skin (!) and Lis is a paraplegic doormat with a phonograph player. They travel through a desolate, mountainous landscape looking for the lost city of Tar, where apparently all dreams can come true. They come across a motley of surreal, grotesque characters who seem more interested in debauchery than anything.



Then, every twenty minutes or so, Fando decides to mentally and physically abuse Lis, before ditching her to go off on his own (he usually comes crawling back). While it does have the weird, sometimes beautiful, imagery that Jodorowsky would become known for, it seems to be missing the depth of his later work. I liked a few scenes, like when Fando and Lis stumble upon a bunch of people waking up and floundering around in a mud pit. But none of the scenes added up to much of anything. I never got any sort of impression or introspection from what was onscreen.

And it's really hard to spend any time with the annoying main characters. Lis is at least an attractive lady, and loses her top here and there, but Fando is just a complete prick. There are several scenes of Fando doing things like dragging Lis across the stony ground by her dead legs while she screams in pain. It's unpleasant to watch, and the longer it goes, the more it focuses on the cruelty. I guess maybe that's the point, and maybe it's my own fault for not knowing what it's supposed to mean. But it's hard to watch something that seems to be cruel for cruelty's sake.

In the end, it's just a pretentious mess. Stick with his later work.