Featured Audience Ratings

• Anthony L

  
  Surreal, grotesque and remarkable. Thank god he found it after 30 years of being lost!

• El Hombre I

  
  Filled with symbolism, it makes for a very difficult film to summarize, but is totally worth experiencing for those with open minds. Lis can't walk. Fando drags her in a wagon on their journey. Along the way, they see a burning piano, naked zombie-like humans wallowing in mud,… More
  Filled with symbolism, it makes for a very difficult film to summarize, but is totally worth experiencing for those with open minds. Lis can't walk. Fando drags her in a wagon on their journey. Along the way, they see a burning piano, naked zombie-like humans wallowing in mud, women playing poker with peaches and women chasing Fando. These are only some of the bizarre images. Working with no budget to speak of, and filmed on weekends, the production reeks with Bunuel influenced surrealism throwing you head first into the bottomless pit of grotesque pain that is life and makes you laugh all the way like a hyena. Enjoy.. <a href="http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/?action=view&current=fando2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/fando2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

• Michael G

  
  Saw this last summer and I remember having the same opinion I generally have of Jodorowsky's films--glad I saw it but I don't really ever need to see it again.

• Cassandra M

  
  The sad fact is that nobody makes movies like this anymore. Surrealism is dead and has been replaced by so-called "reality-based TV". Seeing FANDO & LIS over thirty years later, one realizes the power Jodorowsky has to teach a new generation how it's done - for the… More
  The sad fact is that nobody makes movies like this anymore. Surrealism is dead and has been replaced by so-called "reality-based TV". Seeing FANDO & LIS over thirty years later, one realizes the power Jodorowsky has to teach a new generation how it's done - for the pendulum is sure to swing back in surrealism's favor any day now. Listen to the audio commentary and learn how to use symbolism effectively. Nobody does it better. The scene in the graveyard alone is a classic. As for shock value, this was the UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1928 by Luis Bunuel & Savador Dali) of it's day. Yes, like its predecessor, FANDO Y LIS caused riots when first screened and it's easy to see why. Audiences are still being challenged by it. This is the first "midnight movie" made before the term was even coined. There is only one way to describe it: a brilliantly shocking masterpiece.

• Lafe F

  
  A disturbing and weird film about love and hope. Fando (Sergio Kleiner) pushes his invalid girlfriend Lis (Diana Mariscal) across a strange desert wasteland in search of the legendary last surviving city of "Tar". Director Alejandro Jodorowsky has shot this film in crisp… More
  A disturbing and weird film about love and hope. Fando (Sergio Kleiner) pushes his invalid girlfriend Lis (Diana Mariscal) across a strange desert wasteland in search of the legendary last surviving city of "Tar". Director Alejandro Jodorowsky has shot this film in crisp and high-contrast black and white. Fando and Lis meet weird and insane characters, who often sidetrack them from their quest. Fando has disturbing flashbacks of his parents. He and Lis often get separated and lost from each other. The evil journey wears them down. Things get hopeless. It's a depressing odyssey, but it sure was interesting.

• Eric B

  
  When a film is based on surreal, head-flick imagery but has limited budget and the washed-out quality of a '40s stag reel, it's probably in trouble. This brings us to the overambitious "Fando y Lis," the first feature of Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky.… More
  When a film is based on surreal, head-flick imagery but has limited budget and the washed-out quality of a '40s stag reel, it's probably in trouble. This brings us to the overambitious "Fando y Lis," the first feature of Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky. Similar in concept to his better known "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain," "Fando y Lis" depicts another arduous quest for spiritual enlightenment -- in this case, represented by a mystical city of bliss called "Tar." Fando and Lis are a young couple. Fando has shaggy sideburns and mercurial, childlike temperament. Lis is a petite, crippled, emotionally needy blonde. Fando pushes her around on a bulky cart, along with an old-fashioned gramophone, her doll and his beloved drum. He recurrently loses patience with Lis and turns cruel, but soon regrets his abuse. The two hope to find Tar, but never get beyond what appears to be the bottom of an abandoned rock quarry. Along the way, they encounter a bounty of strange people and sights that include drag queens, a dominatrix with a whip, a jazz cat with a flaming piano, a naked clan who lives in a mudhole, card-playing crones who bet with peaches, an old man lording over a pile of cow skulls, women who use bowling balls as weapons, gluttons feasting with funnels on their heads and Fando's grotesque mother. Oh, and here's an image Freud would love: a man viciously stabbing a hole in a doll's crotch and then draping tiny snakes over the gash. Meanwhile, Fando and Lis strike poses in a graveyard, dabble in cross-dressing and splash their names across each other's bodies in dark paint. Fando lights a large spider on fire, and stumbles around an auto junkyard with seductive trollops. Lis gets molested, gives birth to piglets and lets a blind man drink her blood. Where Luis Bunuel left off, this film begins. If "Fando y Lis" is anything like "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain," Jodorowsky carefully chose all these images to illustrate various metaphysical obstacles that the couple must hurdle. But his symbolism is so personal that one needs Cliff's Notes (or at least a DVD commentary track) to understand. And unfortunately, the film can be quite grating even without visuals. Sound effects are often jacked up to an abrasive volume, and even everyday activities like eating and walking are unrealistically noisy (the opening scene with Lis chewing a crunchy flower might be enough to send some viewers running from the room). The background for one scene resembles a din of rusty door hinges, and another segment even has what World Cup fans may identify as a chorus of angry vuvuzelas. Epileptics should avoid this film at all costs. Movie buffs? Proceed with caution.

• Quinto W

  
  A very interesting exploration of an abusive and co-dependant relationship; the imagery is raw, hipnotic and beautiful in perfect black and white.

• Ivan D

  
  Jodorowsky's first feature film is maybe one of the strangest films ever. From the moment the two lovers (Fando and Lis) embarked on a journey to Tar, it will not let you out of its grasp until you experience the weirdest, and the sickest 1 and a half hour of your life. The film… More
  Jodorowsky's first feature film is maybe one of the strangest films ever. From the moment the two lovers (Fando and Lis) embarked on a journey to Tar, it will not let you out of its grasp until you experience the weirdest, and the sickest 1 and a half hour of your life. The film contains many weird and frightening surreal images, but sometimes it was very over-the-top it is hard to take the film seriously. The location was very creepy, with sick and twisted silence, and I believe that if the place used was different, it will not deliver the great impact it brought to the viewers. Watch this film with an open mind, because if you don't, believe me, it will drive you insane.

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