Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Creator of El Topo

I found her in her studio, working on a large canvas. When she saw me, she exclaimed: “Sebastian, don’t move! I want you to come into my painting!”

I saw myself already depicted there: My body was elongated; a large, black chrysanthemum was pictured in place of a head and two enormous eyes were figured on my chest. I was pale, and on my shoulders, I bore a pale blue dwarf with a round, flat head like a soup bowl. With a gesture of frenetic uncertainty, this little being was pointing toward three paths that led to other spaces.

After two hours of immobility, I dared to move slightly to look at the other paintings that leaned against the walls. On one of them, in the middle of a kabbalistic sketch, there floated the head of Maria Félix so realistically painted that it almost could have been a photograph. When I let out a small exclamation of surprise, Leonora understood immediately.

“Do not suppose that I am capable of mastering a style that I detest. That famous actress insisted on paying a very high price for a portrait signed by me. She demanded that the likeness of her features be exact to the fraction of an inch. She didn’t care about the rest and left that to my imagination. You see that hole in the wall there? While the diva was posing, Jose Horna, Kati’s husband, was watching and painting her from the other room. He has no imagination, but he does have an incredible talent and technique for reproduction. As you see, the only thing Maria’s head is missing is the ability to speak in that black scarab voice of hers. I am thinking about painting her with three transparent, superimposed bodies in the middle of a magic forest. The contrast between my style, with its hazy borders, and that face will give birth to an angelic demon. Its soul will be satisfied by my painting and its narcissism will be satisfied by that of my friend.

“But don’t think I have disdain for Jose. He is an extraordinary being, a Spanish gypsy with emerald eyes. I’ve known him for many years. When he was still a humble carpenter, he came to see me because he had had a dream about me. He was inside a cathedral, standing before a very high pillar. Looking up, he saw the eyes of a serpent. Its body was white, heavy, smooth, and covered with prophetic messages. It slithered down the pillar and passed by him like a sigh. It then changed into me. Turning around and smiling, I said: ‘I am going. Follow me always.’ Jose obeyed and followed his dream serpent. He came to Mexico with Kati in order to find me. For years now, they have been my neighbors. He takes care of my plants, he sculpts my dolls, he makes my furniture and the frames for my paintings. I know that his emerald eyes belong to the hidden unicorn in the tarot.”

She had to finish the painting of Maria within a week. The actress was going to Europe and wanted to hang it in her luxurious house there. For the next few days, I arrived at six o’clock each morning and assisted Leonora during this period of feverish activity. My task was to stand by as she worked, paint flowing uncontrolled over the canvas from the brush she held in each hand, which created two forms simultaneously around the famous face. As she did this, she asked me strange questions that I took as surrealistic koans.

“Every thing lives because of my vital fluid. I wake up when you sleep. If I stand up, they bury you. Who am I?. . We shall transform ourselves suddenly into two dark, dashing Venezuelan men drinking tea in an aquarium. Why?. . A red owl looks at me. In my belly, a drop of mercury forms. What does it mean?. . A transparent egg that emits rays like the great constellations is a body, but it is also a box. Of what?. . Only bitter laments will enable us to cry a tear. Is this tear an ant?”

How could I answer? To each of her questions I rose up on tiptoe and let my body dance.

On the ground floor there was a rectangular courtyard full of flowering plants and trees that rose up to the second story. Kati watered them and at the same time photographed every flower, leaf, and insect. Suddenly, we heard her calling us with loud screams. Thinking that some accident had befallen her, we all ran tumultuously down the stairs — Leonora, Chiki, Gaby, Pablo, Jose, the dog, and me.

Kati was standing there, safe and sound, photographing a chrysalis.

“Look, look! This is a divine moment! The caterpillar is dying and the butterfly is being born. The coffin of one is the cradle of the other. But at this moment, though the caterpillar has died, the butterfly is not yet born — so there is nothing. I am photographing nothingness.”

As a fiery-colored insect arose to flutter among the flowers, Kati murmured: “Nothingness has densified, and a new illusion is born.”

Leonora added, “We, too, should open ourselves as the chrysalis opens, to emerge completely new — our hair prickling like rays of light, unimaginably other.”

The portrait was completed on time. The disconcerting realism of Maria Félix’s head floated like a deaf and blind planet in a threefold, magical body. The world Leonora had painted vibrated with ecstasy. In it, the classic head, satisfied with its limits, seemed like a prison.

“I will give it to her today, this evening at nine o’clock. I want to prepare a dinner for her and a few friends, and I’d like you to help me in the kitchen.”

Wearing a dress covered with tiny stars, and with me in the kitchen as the only onlooker, she commenced the preparations for the feast. In five chamber pots (brand new, of course), she planned to serve thirty-three pounds of caviar, about six pounds in each pot. I was appalled at the fortune this must have cost. With a mischievous smile, Leonora revealed her trickery: in fact, she had drenched cooked tapioca grains with black squid’s ink. Using this simple technique, she managed to obtain a delicious pseudocaviar.

Then she explained how the soup was to be made: “With an unbroken stream of incantations spoken in the voice of a lion, I make my soup on wild rocks while looking at certain stars. The ingredients are simple: half a pink onion, a bit of perfumed wood, some grains of myrrh, a large branch of green mint, three belladonna pills covered with white Swiss chocolate, and a huge compass rose, which I plunge into the soup for one minute before removing it. Just before serving the soup, I add a Chinese ‘cloud’ mushroom, which has snail-like antennae and grows on owl dung.”

At exactly nine o’clock, the great lady arrived. Only male guests had been invited so that the actress would have no feeling of competition. They all stared at her, tongue-tied. There were four painters, two writers, a film director, a banker, three important lawyers, and me — a theater director whom the others seemed to regard as a visitor from another planet. Chiki, who detested this sort of event, had taken refuge with his children and the Hornas in the red shadows of the photography lab. The resplendent painting, covered with a veil, was set on an easel in the middle of the room.

In person, Maria Félix was far more impressive than on the screen. Her luxurious, jet-black hair; her fine features; her queenly bearing; her potent, castrating regard; her intoxicating Mexican beauty; her baroque jewelry; her splendid evening gown; and especially the imperious flash in her eyes were breathtaking. A palpable testosterone silence hung in the room like a pall. Leonora broke it by whipping away the veil from the canvas dramatically and tossing it into the air so that it flew like a bird over our heads and struck a window before falling out of sight.

With a gasp of admiration, Señora Félix stood in front of the painting, her naked back toward us. Then she turned slowly around to face us, as if gazing upon her audience from a high throne. An invisible flame seemed to shoot out from her pupils as she looked at each of us fully in the eyes, one by one, with the clear intention of arousing us. Finally, her gaze strayed to the dog, Eldra. With great satisfaction, the señora pronounced these sultry words, which slithered through the air like a snake: