My first encounter with the art of Alejandro Jodorowsky occurred over ten years ago. My local art house cinema was showing El Topo, his 1970 take on the Western, and I had nothing better to do that night. Halfway through the film the man sitting next to me – who looked uncannily like the film’s main character – leaned over and asked if I was interested in buying some “ganja”. I politely declined. As the credits rolled across the screen the father and son who had been sitting in front of me angrily got up, muttering to each other that this had surely been “the most disappointing f*cking Western we’ve ever seen”. I am yet to come across a better summary of the effect Jodorowsky’s art tends to have on people.

Fast forward to 2023. I was disappointed to hear that the second instalment of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation was being postponed. Fortunately I soon discovered that Jodorowsky had been working on his own adaptation of Frank Herbert’s story back in the 1970s. Due to a lack of funding the film never came to be, so unfortunately we’ll never get to see his vision of the desert planet Arrakis. Fortunately the film’s production saga has been documented in Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013), a tale packed with madcap anecdotes involving Mick Jagger, Salvador Dalí, and H.R. Giger.

Understandably devastated when the film project was cancelled, Jodorowsky proceeded to develop his ideas in comic and graphic novel form. Together with Moebius, the French artist who had worked on the film’s concept art, he created The Incal (1981-8). In Jodorowsky’s Dune, Jodorowsky explains he wanted the film to feel like a hallucination without drugs. The Incal offers a glimpse of what that vision would have looked like in practice. After a coherent start the story unravels into a dazzling roller coaster ride during which the plot takes a backseat to an onslaught of philosophical and spiritual ideas.

After The Incal Jodorovsky continued to explore its world in the Metabarons saga (1992-2003). While The Incal was already strictly aimed at adults only, the Metabarons world is one of torture, rape, murder, intrigue, incest, and rampant destruction, all set in a dystopian spacescape where nature is nothing but a vague memory, Challenging stuff, and best consumed in small quantities, but with Steelhead it has one of the most complex and interesting characters I have ever come across.

Back to film. Prior to becoming engrossed in Dune – although he has freely admitted to never getting around to reading the novel – Jodorowsky made The Holy Mountain (1973). Summarizing the plot of this fever dream of a film is impossible, so all I’ll say is that to me it offers a powerful message about identity and self-actualization. It’s pointless to search for enlightenment by following potentially fraudulent gurus: we all carry the truth inside ourselves already and all we need to do is open ourselves up to its message. Easier said than done, and to some The Holy Mountain may feel like nothing more than a pretentious, chaotic collection of frenetic vignettes.

That’s a valid point, and my point here is not to argue that everyone should explore Jodorowsky’s oeuvre, let alone like it. Much of his work is not likeable, especially where it involves violence, grotesque sexuality and human suffering. But I find the ambition and far-reaching imagination of his art very inspiring, even if some of it may feel a bit frayed around the edges. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t just exist to be decorative, it can also broaden our mind by pushing us far beyond our comfort zone, even if what we find there holds up a mirror in which we can see our own flaws all too clearly.

Image my own @thecococatani