SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our THURSDAY CULT CLASSIC PRAYER MEETING Series, Thursday, July 27, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the 1917 Bay St building. Our entrance is NOT on Bay Street. You access our entrance from Wilson Street by turning into the street art alleyway/corridor in the back of the building. Look for our signs which are always posted on Wilson and in the corridor to guide the audience.
7:30pm EL TOPO (1970, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky, ABKCO, Mexico, 101mns, 35mm - Spanish with English subtitles)
10pm THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky, ABKCO, Mexico, 150mns, 35mm - Spanish & English with subtitles)
SPECIAL NOTE: Due to the controversial and sexually graphic nature of some scenes in both these movies, no one under 17 will be allowed into the screenings.
Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky is sometimes credited as being the “inventor” of the cult midnight movie. When his acid trip spiritual quest western El Topo played, it became one of the first veritable hits of the midnight cult circuit.
John Lennon was so blown away by El Topo he got his manager, Allen Klein, to finance Jodorowsky’s next movie (and possible masterpiece) Holy Mountain (which we’re also screening tonight).
El Topo follows a mysterious gunslinger (played by Jodorowsky) “El Topo” (which means “the Mole” in Spanish) through a hallucinatory desert as he battles villains both external and internal. The more enemies he vanquishes, the more spiritual, strange, sexual, mysterious becomes his journey until the western genre fuses with the satiric and the spiritual to become something you’ve never seen before.
This feels like a movie that could only have been made in that window of the late 1960’s, early 1970’s when cinematic, artistic, musical expression suddenly broke out from the societal parameters that had bounded it for decades.
Jodorowsky, who got his start as a clown and mime, has always been determined to use cinema as a means of artistic expression. And El Topo is exhibit one in a movie that compromises for no one. It is, for better and worse, pure artistic vision.
There is controversy as well however and the audience should be aware that El Topo is plagued with concerns that there may be a scene of non-consensual sex. Jodorowsky himself asserted there was when the movie was released but later issued an apology and retraction explaining he had made up the story for “surrealist” publicity. Please follow your own counsel here. And do your own research.
What’s important to assert right here though is that like David Lynch’s movies, Jodorowsky’s cinema has a there there. They aren’t just weird for weirdnesses sake. They are potent, meaningful, works of cinematic art.
It is in fact their spiritual and thematic ability to explore topics like societal hypocrisy, sexuality, spiritual journeys, politics in a singular mind-blowing cinematic style that makes Jodorowsky’s movies marvels.
Jodorowsky followed up El Topo with what may be his ultimate masterpiece, The Holy Mountain.
Here Jodorowsky plays (he would star in almost all his movies) the “Alchemist” who gathers a group of people with singular abilities to make a journey to try to get to the top of the “Holy Mountain”. Call it the Avengers of midnight cult spiritual sexual satire cinema.
Based on an unfinished novel, Holy Mountain shows Jodorowsky’s near preternatural ability to balance comedy, mind tattooing imagery, deeply earnest spiritual investigation, sexuality, and cinematic experimentation. He may have trained as a mime but he may be an even more talented juggler and tightrope walker.
Jodorowsky’s invented ending for the unfinished novel actually manages to stick the landing, providing a resolution that feels deeply true to the inner logic of the movie itself. And true to Jodorowsky’s own lifelong commitment to the merging of the sexual, physical, and spiritual.
Two of the greatest works of surrealist cinema (in a lineage that includes Bunuel and Lynch), El Topo and Holy Mountain are mind-expanding works of cinema. And we’re showing them both on rare 35mm prints.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
*Please note that though we strive to always show titles on 35mm film if advertised, we may have to screen digitally if the print we receive is in such bad shape or if we don't receive the print in time because of a shipping delay. We will do our best to alert the audience. When this does occur, we will offer each ticket holder who chooses not to attend a complimentary ticket to a future event in exchange. (Disclaimer: Good for 90 days – Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
You can follow us on Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub or Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm
You can also subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at secretmovieclub.com or by writing to us at community@secretmovieclub.com and using the header “SUBSCRIBE ME TO NEWSLETTER”.
HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.