The film that caused a riot at the Acapulco Film Festival in 1968. Fando Y Lis is a post-apocalyptic surreal drama-adventure which radically changed it’s own genre from that moment onward. Fando made surrealism bolder, more aggressive, and filled with a twisted sense of humor both nightmarish and highly playful. We are watching one of film’s great mad geniuses discover his own footing. Although far from a great film, Fando Y Lis is a highly influential and original one that is unforgettable to anyone who sees it.
The story is quite simple. It is about a young man, Fando and his paraplegic girlfriend, Lis, as they journey across a barren landscape in search of the magical city of Tar, a Latin Shangri-La type of destination. It has been told that those who reach Tar will receive limitless enlightenment and happiness, as well as make Lis able to walk again. Can Fando and Lis reach Tar? Does Tar even exist?

Fando and Lis aren’t that interesting as individual characters. Fando is a lighthearted prankster who is always playing around. Lis is constantly depressed and always on the verge of tears. Aside from these basic personality traits, their romance, and their horrible upbringings (Fando had overbearing parents, Lis was molested as a child), we don’t know very much about them. What makes them fascinating is the progression of their relationship and the way they treat each other.
At the start of their journey, Fando and Lis are openly affectionate with each other. An entire segment is dedicated to them making cutesy poses in a cemetery. Lis will occasionally complain about being tired or not being able to find Tar, but Fando either brushes those aside or tries to cheer her up. She is needy, but Fando puts up with her because their love is still fresh.

 

Their relationship grows more complicated as they encounter a series of bizarre characters. They include but are not limited to waltzing Jazz bar patrons (dancing to a pianist playing on a burning piano of course), mud people, an insane ex-bishop with a breastfeeding fetish, mudpeople, and a wealthy vampire. The scenes involving these characters are filled with cryptic dialogue, creepy gags, and complete unpredictability. For a first time viewer it is nearly impossible to guess what could happen from one scene to the next. With every encounter, they end up being attacked or humiliated, either out of bad luck or naivety in willing to trust these crazy people.
The further the journey goes on and looks more hopeless, the greater the hostility between the couple is. Arguments are quick to start and physical abuse becomes commonplace. Curiously enough, the performances become stronger the further the film goes along. Almost as if Jodorowsky is learning as he’s going along. This escalates into the ending where it reaches a startling conclusion. From this point it is clear what the film is meant to signify. Beneath the nightmare imagery, insane people, and mysticism is a metaphor for falling out of love and the loss of innocence and dreams. We step into the world thinking we’re going to be invincible, and the world laughs back and proves us wrong.
Being a Jodorowsky film, even in this premature stage in his career, he was a master at creating powerful imagery. Fando Y Lis uses overexposed black and white photography that keeps the film otherworldly and haunting. Often times the desert resembles a blank canvas that stretches out indefinitely, a world that is truly without limit. You also get a host of bizarre scenes including worms being placed inside a doll, a puppet show held in what looks like an abandoned warehouse, a funeral conducted in a concrete parking lot. Although this film is way more scattershot when put together against his (comparatively) more focused work, the results are still stunning.

The music consists of tragic vaguely Latin sounding carnival music and Jazz piano. For all of his films, Jodorowsky always had excellent selection of music to choose from and his debut is of now exception. The best tracks would have to be the “Funeral” track and the “Killing” track. At times it sounds like a prototype for the score of Jodorowsky’s later Santa Sangre.
Sound design for the film consists of all sorts of ominous honks, creaks, scratching, and other eerie electrical sounds. Most of the time it creates a truly ominous atmosphere. Other times it gets seriously annoying. One scene that is especially annoying is the scene with the old ladies playing cards and making out with a fat guy. There is a constant sound of swarming bees that seemingly goes on endlessly. I could stick my head in a beehive and expect to hear less bees than I would hear in this film. What possessed Jodorowsky to give the okay to such a grating effect? The bees continue for so long, that they even wreck an otherwise great scene of Fando being pursued by a dominatrix led gang of angry bowlers. There is also a highly annoying leather squeaking sound and what sounds like the first 5 seconds of The Beastie Boys track “Girls” on a loop, during the scene when Fando and Lis encounter a group of dancing drag queens. The sound design may be unique, but there are moments that totally miss the mark.
Bleak, disturbing, and all over the place. Fando Y Lis is an ambitious but ultimately uneven film that is fascinating only for the potential that will soon emerge from the career of Alejandro Jodorowsky. He was far from a master, but it was only a matter of time before he would become one. 3/5 Guldkameror!
Brad