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By Michael Hootman

EL TOPO (Arrow Blu-ray).

In the early ‘70s Alejandro Jodorowsky’s film was considered a counter-culture classic though in 2021 is looks suspiciously like a bit of a mess. It’s basically a Sadeian Western in which its black-clad protagonist, played by the director, strides manfully though a series of tableaux whose themes are cruelty, torture, rape and death.

The violence isn’t exactly realistic but it’s all fairly nasty; it’s hard to tell if the film’s attitude is condemnatory or if the horror is portrayed without any moral purpose. Though for me the only shot that made me queasy was a close-up of Jodorowsky’s mouth and beard dripping with honeycomb. Sometimes the anti-hero kills – or castrates – for revenge, sometimes his motives are as obscure as the occult symbolism without which no scene is complete.

The second half of the film sees him trying to save a group of people hidden underground due to developmental problems (or, as one very funny subtitle has it: ‘we’re deformed due to the continuous incest’). As almost every reviewer agrees, the images are striking: from an eviscerated horse suspended from a tower through to sandy vistas, the film is always visually interesting. The women don’t come off very well and scenes of violence and rape seem to be tossed in as carelessly as any of the movie’s other ingredients.

But then the men hardly fare any better. El Topo has many admirers but as it progresses it becomes even more frustratingly opaque and eventually boredom sets in. An intriguing two hours, but an experience I have no wish to ever repeat. Fans, and the curious, will be interested to know that Arrow is also releasing the director’s follow-up, The Holy Mountain.

THE PAWNBROKER (BFI Blu-ray).

Rod Steiger dominates this film, a coiled spring of misanthropy and suppressed rage, playing the eponymous character, Auschwitz survivor Sol Nazerman. He tries to navigate life by disconnecting from human emotions and people such as his customers who he labels as ’scum’ or ’the rejects of society’. He’s also assailed by flashbacks of the atrocities he witnessed in the camp; the film in many respects is a psychological portrait of a man trying to cope with PTSD.

Nazerman’s pawnbroker business is used a front to launder money for Harlem crime boss Rodriguez who is black and – it’s strongly suggested – gay. It’s a strange attribute for the character to have, especially for a film from the early ‘60s. As Rodriguez is a morally rotten character maybe his sexuality is a way to signify depravity. Or it could just be that it gives Brock Peters great scope to create a character that is powerfully menacing – with a hint of camp – which gives the film a muchneeded shot of adrenaline.

Nazerman has a frigid friendship with a social worker played by Geraldine Fitzgerald and is a reluctant mentor to an underling played, slightly stagily, by Jaime Sanchez. For a film with its heart manifestly in the right place it’s generated a fair amount of controversy, from being described as ‘an extreme example of Jewish self-hatred’ to criticism over its depiction of its black characters.

At one point Nazerman reveals his philosophy of life, that the only thing that is worth living for is money. Is his rage making him contemptuously play out an antisemitic stereotype? The Pawnbroker is worth seeing for its central performances and, incidentally, its great documentary-style shots of New York.

THE RIVER (BFI Blu-ray).

Jean Renoir’s adaptation of Rumer Godden’s novel is often cited as the most beautiful colour film ever made and, looking at this impressive HD transfer, it’s hard to disagree. Filmed entirely in India, it shows its protagonists – a wealthy English family – against a backdrop of real Indians living and working on the banks of the Ganges.

With its painterly compositions and magnificent photography it sometimes takes your breath away with the richness of detail and the way it conveys the atmosphere of the subcontinent. It’s true the main focus is on an English family and their friends but as it’s a coming of age story about a young girl – told from her point of view – it would be strange for it to explore the political tensions of the time.

If the viewer accepts The River as a romantic film about love, life and nature which is set in India, rather than being about India, it would be hard not to be completely swept up by the story.