THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
April 24th 2008 10:50
THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)
Written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Starring: Horacio Salinas, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Zamira Saunders, Valerie Jodorowsky.
Nothing could have prepared me for this.
No other film I have watched: not Lynch, not Kubrick, not Jeunet, not even the other works I have seen by Jodorowsky (El Topo, Sante Sangre), nothing comes close to this Arthouse-meets-Nuthouse piece of cinematic history. It is, simply, more an experience than a film.
The Holy Mountain tells of a Christlike beggar (referred to only as the thief), who after being stoned by a tribe of naked children, befriended by a man with partially-developed limbs, drugged by obese centurions, used as the model for plaster statues of Christ and a brief stint as crowd-wrangler for a re-enactment of the Conquest of America (performed by hundreds of costumed toads, obviously) scales a mighty tower and encounters a mystical alchemist (Jodorowsky himself). The Alchemist shows the thief how his faeces may be distilled into gold, he then sets him up with a party of powerful beings (from other planets, it would seem) and leads them on a quest for the titular Holy Mountain in the hopes of stealing the secret of immortality.
So much for the plot…the real brilliance of this film lies not in the narrative but in the sheer demented spectacle of the thing. It comes at you with image after image: each one as crazed and baffling and grotesque and beautiful as the one before it. The early scenes of the film are the most reminiscent of El Topo - given the way they revel in unpleasantness, violence and deformity (the city and its inhabitants recall the works of Hieronymous Bosch or Joel-Peter Witkin) but soon Jodorowsky’s gleeful humour becomes more apparent. Make no mistake - The Holy Mountain is a very, very funny film. It combines socio-political satire, subverted Catholic iconography, a parody of the spiritual quest undertaken by so many privileged Westerners and climactically a statement about the very nature of cinema. It is also the least po-faced Art film I have seen.
And, oh the images: flocks of birds burst from chest-wounds, a nude woman pleasures a giant machine with a four-foot dildo, a faceless and inverted Christ ascends into the sky beneath a bunch of brightly-coloured balloons, a shrieking hag hangs from a tree laden with slaughtered chickens, dozens of horses stand in shallow open graves, a police chief fills a shrine with the severed testicles of his followers, and did I mention the toads? The greatest delight of the film is Jodorowsky’s seemingly limitless imagination and the way in which it is realised onscreen. The Holy Mountain is, quite simply, utterly extraordinary. In fact, I can’t put it any better than what a friend said as the credits rolled: “I can’t even dream like that.”
I understand that the film was largely (if not exclusively) funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. If so then, at the risk of offending anyone who thinks ‘Imagine’ is like totally deep and stuff, it is perhaps the greatest contribution either of them has made in the name of Art. It thoroughly deserved the round of applause the audience gave it as the cinema lights came up. If you get the opportunity, and you’re not easily offended, see it.
All hail Alejandro Jodorowsky, may the rumours of a new film be true (even if it does star Marilyn Manson).
Written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Starring: Horacio Salinas, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Zamira Saunders, Valerie Jodorowsky.
Nothing could have prepared me for this.
No other film I have watched: not Lynch, not Kubrick, not Jeunet, not even the other works I have seen by Jodorowsky (El Topo, Sante Sangre), nothing comes close to this Arthouse-meets-Nuthouse piece of cinematic history. It is, simply, more an experience than a film.
The Holy Mountain tells of a Christlike beggar (referred to only as the thief), who after being stoned by a tribe of naked children, befriended by a man with partially-developed limbs, drugged by obese centurions, used as the model for plaster statues of Christ and a brief stint as crowd-wrangler for a re-enactment of the Conquest of America (performed by hundreds of costumed toads, obviously) scales a mighty tower and encounters a mystical alchemist (Jodorowsky himself). The Alchemist shows the thief how his faeces may be distilled into gold, he then sets him up with a party of powerful beings (from other planets, it would seem) and leads them on a quest for the titular Holy Mountain in the hopes of stealing the secret of immortality.
So much for the plot…the real brilliance of this film lies not in the narrative but in the sheer demented spectacle of the thing. It comes at you with image after image: each one as crazed and baffling and grotesque and beautiful as the one before it. The early scenes of the film are the most reminiscent of El Topo - given the way they revel in unpleasantness, violence and deformity (the city and its inhabitants recall the works of Hieronymous Bosch or Joel-Peter Witkin) but soon Jodorowsky’s gleeful humour becomes more apparent. Make no mistake - The Holy Mountain is a very, very funny film. It combines socio-political satire, subverted Catholic iconography, a parody of the spiritual quest undertaken by so many privileged Westerners and climactically a statement about the very nature of cinema. It is also the least po-faced Art film I have seen.
And, oh the images: flocks of birds burst from chest-wounds, a nude woman pleasures a giant machine with a four-foot dildo, a faceless and inverted Christ ascends into the sky beneath a bunch of brightly-coloured balloons, a shrieking hag hangs from a tree laden with slaughtered chickens, dozens of horses stand in shallow open graves, a police chief fills a shrine with the severed testicles of his followers, and did I mention the toads? The greatest delight of the film is Jodorowsky’s seemingly limitless imagination and the way in which it is realised onscreen. The Holy Mountain is, quite simply, utterly extraordinary. In fact, I can’t put it any better than what a friend said as the credits rolled: “I can’t even dream like that.”
I understand that the film was largely (if not exclusively) funded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. If so then, at the risk of offending anyone who thinks ‘Imagine’ is like totally deep and stuff, it is perhaps the greatest contribution either of them has made in the name of Art. It thoroughly deserved the round of applause the audience gave it as the cinema lights came up. If you get the opportunity, and you’re not easily offended, see it.
All hail Alejandro Jodorowsky, may the rumours of a new film be true (even if it does star Marilyn Manson).
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