Fando y Lis (1968)

In January 2019, a planned retrospective of the works of Alejandro Jodorowsky at New York City's El Museo del Barrio, a museum dedicated to Latin artists, was canceled by the venue, the reasoning being provocative comments Jodorowsky made in 1972 regarding shooting a scene depicting rape in his landmark acid western El Topo (1970). The cancellation of the retrospective, cowardly as it was, was all too predictable. A symptom of the pathetic and regressive sociopolitical climate, a period which should be judged harshly by legitimate historians for its anti-art, pro-censorship sentiments. Still, useful idiots are hardly in short supply, ready and willing to be gaslit and marched to the cultural gulag, erasing the works of important artists who were persecuted and at times even prosecuted for their work in the past, so while the canceling of the Jodorowsky retrospective is symptomatic of contemporary culture's failure, authoritarian censorship is ultimately a historical cockroach. In the case of Jodorowsky, the man certainly is a provocateur in the classic sense. The definition of a larger-than-life personality, Jodorowsky stunned unsuspecting audiences with films like El Topo and The Holy Mountain (1973), the outrageous films almost demanding a visceral reaction, so Jodorowsky hardly shied from controversy. This was made clear from the outset at the Acapulco Film Festival where Jodorowsky's overlooked debut feature Fando y Lis had its premiere and subsequently caused a riot to break out.

The roots of Fando y (and) Lis can be traced back to the Panic Movment, an surrealist ensamble formed by Jodorowsky along with Fernando Arrabal, director of Viva la muerte (1971) and I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (1973) and chameleon creative Roland Topor, author of The Tenant, later adapted by Roman Polanski in 1976. Originally a play by Arrabal, Fando y Lis, a “Panic film”, has often been described as having been shot with only Jodo's “hazy memories” of Arrabal's play, though the general idea remains the same, that of Lis, a paraplegic and her boyfriend Fando traversing an imposing landscape searching for Tar, a mythical city, encountering a plethora of bizarre characters along the way.

Given that the film was constructed with Jodorowsky working only from his own memories of Arrabal's play, which was keeping with Panic ethos, Fando y Lis the most loose feeling of Jodorowsky's films, playing out very much like titular characters trek to Tar, a strange, random and at times painful, yet unforgettable journey. It's fitting that the Panic Movement was influenced by Henry Becque's Theater of Cruelty, later pioneered by Antonin Artaud, as despite the mythical paradise that is supposed to be Tar, Fando and Lis' journey is fraught with the cruelty of the real world Tar is an escape too. This is perhaps best represented by the change in Fando's treatment of Lis throughout the film. At first loving and care-giving, promising Lis eternal happiness once they reach Tar and pushing and carrying her around everywhere, Fando eventually turns cruel and violent. Lis is a tragic character from the start, with a past trauma being presented by Jorodowsky in a brilliantly realized moment of surreal horror, the multiple religious and spiritual interpretations of the film make it seem as if Lis is a saintly figure of sorts, destined for greater things while suffering a life of torments. The landscape of the duo's journey is also harsh, a desert wasteland that brings with it an ambiance of its own, Jodorowsky also brings out the beauty inherent in the landscape, shooting the film in high contrast black and white using the locations as a backdrop for a barrage of jaw-dropping surreal imagery and scenarios.

Like so many other places around the globe, Mexico in 1968 was in a period of intense civil unrest and social uprising. With large student movements and major protests against the Olympics taking place in Mexico City with the Mexican government spending massive amounts of public funds on the games which would lead to the massacre of many demonstrators, the atmosphere was highly charged when Fando y Lis premiered at Acapulco Film Festival. Unsurprisingly, following the films riotous reception, the film was banned in Mexico. It's damn near impossible not to draw parallels between Fando y Lis and another maverick feature film debut, Jean Rollin's The Rape of the Vampire (1968) which also premiered in the midst of high tensions, tensions which eventually shut down the Cannes Film Festival, and caused an already on-edge audience to physically revolt against the film. Fast-forward to 2019, and while having a museum exhibit canceled might seem like small potatoes compared to causing a riot, it's nevertheless a prime example of the well-worn adage “the more things change the more they stay the same”. Over fifty years after his first feature film was banned and Jodorowsky's work once again found itself hidden from public view because of things he said over forty years ago, which only proves once again that Jodorowsky's work possesses a quality that transcends time. It challenges repressive dogma. We're lucky to have him.