Fando and Lis

A film shot in Mexico. Fando pushes a cart. Lis is in it; she cannot walk. The two are going somewhere. It is called Tar; they say everything is possible there. Where the road is is not clear. Ruins, desert, sand and abandoned buildings. From there the film consists of a series of encounters. There are groups along the way and each performs a different rite. Nobody knows Tar. Everyone points a different direction. Fando carries her and at the same time treats her badly. Tenderness and violence in the same scene. Lis does not answer it. Flashbacks cut in. The childhood of both; fathers, mothers, church and first fears. What the narrative is interested in is not a journey but dependence: its idea is that two people are both carrying and consuming each other, and that the destination never existed. The images are black and white and rough. The camera is mostly on the shoulder and the locations are used as found. It was shot at weekends, with a scattered crew and very little money. The source is Fernando Arrabal's stage play; Jodorowsky had staged it before. This is the director's first feature. The screening at the Acapulco Film Festival in 1968 turned violent. The hall broke up, the audience rioted, and Jodorowsky had to be taken out of the building; the film was banned in Mexico. Some of the scenes are wholly symbolic and the narrative explains none of them. Sergio Kleiner, Diana Mariscal and María Teresa Rivas are in the cast. Alejandro Jodorowsky directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes experimental cinema and symbolic narrative. Who it is not for: anyone looking for story; the narrative has no plot and some scenes are deliberately unbearable.