Read About Our Adventure With Legendary Filmmaker and Spiritual Mystic Alejandro Jodorowsky at His Apartment in Paris →

"I don´t think with ideas, but with my testicles. I don´t search, I ejaculate." This is just one of the many gems offered by legendary filmmaker and spiritual mystic Alejandro Jodorowsky in Adarsha Benjamin's interview with the famous auteur. On the occasion of the release of his new epic book, entitled Where The Bird Sings Best, we have dug this story and interview out of the archives. Originally published in Autre Issue 2, Adarsha Benjamin tells her story of running, jet lagged through the rainy streets of Paris to find Jodorowsky's apartment. Click here to read the full story and interview. 

Fando y Lis

Fando y Lis, Alejandro Jodorowsky's first feature film, tells the tale of Fando and his paraplegic girlfriend Lis through a barren, post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of the mythical city of Tar, where legend has it all wishes come true. Purchase the complete film of Jodorowsky here.

[INFLUENCERS] The Psychomagic of Alejandro Jodorowsky

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Film still from El Topo

With gallons of blood, dwarves, and maimed circus performers, weirdness is almost always guaranteed. Your money's worth? Not so much if you're not ready for the holy mountain that is Alejandro Jodorowsky.  A gunfighter on a violent quest for enlightenment, a feverish search for a mythical holy mountain, and a man serving as his armless mother's arms, carrying out vengeful murders on her behalf, all summarize, albeit briefly, the trifecta of Chilean filmmaker and artist Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal and mystical cinematic masterpieces: El Topo, Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre. Or maybe they're a summary of all the alter-egos of the man himself, the cult legend, the auteur of weird.

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Film still from El Topo

Most people have probably never heard his name before - much less seen his films, but Jodoorsky has had a massive influence on the avant garde, as well as impact on mainstream culture, for almost 30 years.  And thankfully, these days his name has been rising to the surface a lot more. With a high definition version of El Topo, slated for release on April 26, and various premiers of his films, lectures, and collaborations Jodoworsky seems to be getting his rightly due.

In March, Jodowosky started production on a film version of his autobiography The Dance of Reality. To date he has published over 23 novels in the field of psychomagic - which aims to heal wounds of the soul using the Tarot and various forms of holistic mysticism.  He has even spent fifteen years recreating the Tarot of Marseilles - cards that have been de rigueur to the practice of Tarot reading since the 15th century; the cards most are familiar with.  In the end it seems as though Alejandro Jodorowsky is satisfied in the role as shaman and he professes that his main goal is mainly "to spread consciousness." But no matter the course of the artist's multiple identities, Jodorowsky will always be an artist and whatever the medium may be he will continue to have a tremendous influence and voice each time culture sheds its fickle skin.

Visit Alejandro Jodorowsky's official site

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre

Cinema: Santa Sangre

Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal masterpiece is on DVD for the very first time. A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers: he saw his father cut off the arms of his mother, a religious fanatic and leader of the heretical church of Santa Sangre ("Holy Blood"), and then commit suicide. Back in the present, he escapes and rejoins his surviving and armless mother. Against his will, he "becomes her arms" and the two undertake a grisly campaign of murder and revenge.