El Topo (, "The Mole") is a 1970 Mexican acid Western art film written, scored, directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Judeo-Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy, the film is about "El Topo"—a violent, black-clad gunfighter played by Jodorowsky himself—and his quest for enlightenment. Plot "El Topo" is traveling through a desert on horseback with his naked young son, Hijo. After they come across a town whose people, horses and livestock have been slaughtered, "El Topo" hunts down and kills the perpetrators and their leader, a fat balding Colonel. "El Topo" leaves his son to the monks of the settlement's mission and rides off with a woman whom the Colonel had kept as a slave. After turning bitter water sweet by stirring it with a branch, "El Topo" names the woman Marah. In need of food and water, "El Topo" spaces Marah's feet apart and digs up eggs from the sand beneath them, then utters a prayer before shooting a rock, which then releases water. When Marah tries these same techniques, she turns up nothing, seeming to lack "El Topo"'s faith. After "El Topo" tears her clothes and apparently rapes her, Marah promptly becomes able to find eggs and water. She tells "El Topo" she will not return his love unless he proves himself the best gun-fighter by defeating the desert's four great gun masters. Each gun master represents a particular religion or philosophy and "El Topo" learns from each of them before instigating a duel. "El Topo" is victorious each time, not through superior skill but through trickery or luck. After the first duel, a black-clad woman who speaks with a man's voice finds the couple and guides them to the remaining gun masters. As he kills each master, "El Topo" has increasing doubts about his mission, but Marah persuades him to continue. After the final gun master outsmarts "El Topo" by killing himself before "El Topo" is able to kill him, "El Topo" becomes ridden with guilt, destroys his own gun and revisits the places where he killed the masters, finding their corpses either on fire, covered with geometrical objects, or swarming with bees. The unnamed woman confronts "El Topo" and shoots him several times in the manner of stigmata. Marah then rides off with the woman, while "El Topo" collapses and