Fando y Lis

Infobox Film
name = Fando & Lis


caption = Yes
director = Alejandro Jodorowsky
producer =
writer = Alejandro Jodorowsky
starring = Diana Mariscal
Sergio Kleiner
music = Pepe Avila
cinematography = Rafael Corkidi
editing =
distributor =
released = 1967
runtime = 96 minutes
country = Mexico
awards =
language = Spanish
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by = El Topo
amg_id = 1:139531
imdb_id = 0061643

"Fando y Lis" is Alejandro Jodorowsky's first feature length film. The movie is loosely based on a play written by Fernando Arrabal, who was working with Alejandro Jodorowsky on performance art at the time. The film was done in black and white on the weekends with a small budget. The story of the film follows Fando (Sergio Klainer) and his paraplegic girlfriend Lis (Diana Mariscal). It is a modern fable about two young people searching through a destroyed world for a mythic city called Tar where all their wishes will be fulfilled. Instead, they are corrupted and driven mad.

Reaction

When the movie premiered at the 1968 Acapulco film festival, a full scale riot broke out.

According to Jodorowsky's commentary on the DVD, the audience was enraged at the "corrupting content" of the film. Indeed, the director found himself fleeing for his life at the festival, finally to be whisked away in a limo, which was heavily bombarded by stones thrown by the angry mob. However, the film's controversy didn't stop there. In fact, the film was banned from Mexico by the government, and Jodorowsky himself was nearly deported for the madness the film had created. One of the scenes he points out as being especially disliked involves white-haired women gambling for the chance to suck fruit pits out of a man's mouth. The commentary also states that Sergio Klainer was spreading a rumor that Alejandro Jodorowsky was a vampire, since he insisted that Mariscal's actual blood be used in a scene where a man drinks Lis' blood. At the film premiere, Diana Mariscal was noticed to be abnormally thin causing even more conjecture about vampirism. Jodorowsky claims she had become thin from an eating disorder.