The Holy Mountain

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In a corrupt, greed-fueled world, a powerful alchemist leads a Christ-like character and seven materialistic figures to the Holy Mountain, where they hope to achieve enlightenment.



NYTimes

Modern Life, in All Its Mystery and Madness

By MATT ZOLLER SEITZ

Published: April 18, 2007

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 film “Holy Mountain” starts in a mysterious room where a shaman figure known as the Alchemist undresses blond female twins, removes their false fingernails and jewelry and shaves their heads. From there, the movie gets really outré.

A scandal when first released, Mr. Jodorowsky’s movie is a dazzling, rambling, often incoherent satire on consumerism, militarism and the exploitation of third world cultures by the West. It unfurls like a hallucinogenic daydream, which is to be expected, considering that it’s the follow-up to Mr. Jodorowsky’s midnight movie “El Topo.”

The free-association narrative follows a Christ-like character, the Thief, first seen lying in a dusty street, covered with flies and marinating in his own urine. He is rescued (maybe resurrected) by a partial-limbed dwarf and a gang of naked boys, then wanders through the city observing the madness of modern life, including a massacre of protesters by riot soldiers (an event photographed by rich tourists) and a tribute to the Spanish conquest of Mexico, re-enacted by costumed lizards on a scale model of Aztec pyramids.

The second half finds the Thief joining a group of emblematic religious figures assembled by the Alchemist to attack the mountaintop fortress of society’s rulers, the Immortals. The mission ends with a postmodern punch line suggesting that movies are drugs too, and the revolution can’t happen until we kick our habits.

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