The Strangest Movies of the 1970s

El Topo
Alejandro Jodorowsky's Western features a man in black accompanied by a naked child throughout the desert against little people and maimed people and naked women with a background of religious symbolism and drug-induced cinematography. This film, recently released on DVD and once a feature of midnight cinemas, is a better film than his follow-up, the even more psychadelic "Holy Mountain," and has its share of famous fans, from John Lennon to David Lynch. The element of absurdism is admirable and it's not an intolerable film; it's certainly an interesting step further to the left of Serigo Leone's Westerns, and it sure would make John Wayne furious. Still, this is one odd movie.


Arabian Nights
Famed Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini spent over two years in various different countries filming this silly wonder. The third part of his "life trilogy," (the other parts are a more watchable "The Decameron" and "The Cantebury Tales"), there is a nude character--full frontal, guys and gals--about every five minutes or so, and they're usually giggling, rarely acting, and often poorly-dubbed (even in its original Italian). Still, Pasolini somehow managed to get these naked actors to feel comfortable, and it properly prepared him for his next film and his actual masterpiece "Salo: 120 Days of Sodom." Beyond that, "Arabian Nights" is a chaotic, seemingly hastily-made movie that jumps from scene-to-scene with little thought. For further reading/viewing, read here, here and here, and view here (not work appropriate).


Black Samurai
Kierkegaard's "Fear and Tremblin" tells us that absurdism does not necessarily mean what is logically impossible but what is humanly impossible. "Black Samurai" is both. From 1977 (the year of "Star Wars" and "Annie Hall") this was blaxoitation gone far, far wrong. Jim Kelly from "Enter the Dragon" is a badass agent out to get a whiteass bad guy (who simultaenously plays with snakes and worships pagean gods). And Kelly has a pretty cool rocket pack.


There are others, like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" and "Harold and Maude" which are all absurd in a good way. They are also more widely known and therefore not as relevant for a discussion here. I can't necessarily say if these first three films are recommendable or not. Pasolini was a gifted man and his "Salo" is a haunting film worth the watch for brave viewers; "Arabian Nights" was not. Jodorowosky is an acquired taste and not for everyone. "Black Samurai" might rank as an it's-so-bad-it's-good film. Regardless, they are three of the oddest movies I have ever seen.