The Holy Mountain (1973)

[Scott]

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973) - Wow, this is better than EL TOPO (1971) in my opinion. Mexican film Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky who was born in Chile. The film is probably the most bizarre film I've seen since ERASERHEAD (1977) and of course EL TOPO (1973). It displays lots of twisted mysticism which are really pointless, but watchable. The end message about reality is "ok" even if you don't agree. A lot of time and money was spent on this colorfull film. Big production for a 70's Mexican art film.

(9 out of 10 Stars) Not sure why EL TOPO is mentioned more than THE HOLY MOUNTAIN.



[youtube=425,350]http://youtube.com/watch?v=JyEIBdteBVQ

[trekgeezer]

That's some seriously bizarre s**t Scott.  The first time I heard of Jodorowsky was in relation to his purposed version of Dune.

Check out the website for it (I 've never been able to make all the was through it), it too is full of some bizarre ideas. It would have been much freakier than Lynch's version.


http://www.hotweird.com/jodorowsky/dunestory.html

[Scott]

That trailer to THE HOLY MOUNTAIN barely gives you anything. It's much weirder than the trailer.

[Andrew]

I think that my favorite part might have been Christ getting drunk and waking up in the potato warehouse, only to find himself surrounded by hundreds of plaster replicas of himself, then freaking out and smashing them as he screams (boy, I have had hangovers like that).

He does stop and save one that he then carries through the streets of the city - until he meets the cadre of streetwalking nuns.  After that he eats the face off his likeness (because it is cookie dough) and sends the faceless shell drifting into the sky by attaching balloons to it.

The whole section with the Aztec horned toads civilization being attacked by the European Cane Toad invaders was also strange.

And, for those who think I am just screwing around and making stuff up - I am not, everything I described actually happens in the movie.

[RapscallionJones]

Don't forget the part where Jesus embraces alchemy, the tarot and kaballah and then turns his s**t into gold.

[Scott]

Or the testicle hall of fame. 

This film gets crazier as it goes along.

[Andrew]

This film gets crazier as it goes along.

I'm not sure it was as fun for me.  Somewhere during the section when all the new characters are introduced, it flounders and gets really artsy boring during the search for the Holy Mountain.  The end just annoys me, because it is pure "look how clever this art film is" stuff.  I think that all the dialog might be part of the issue.  In the beginning (and almost all of "El Topo") Jodorowsky puts together bizarre scenes with little to no dialog.  As a result, the viewer actually starts to create a plot in their mind.  "Holy Mountain" spells too much out with all the talking.

[Scott]

Guess artsy films can be that way. It gets a bit tedious I suppose, but I thought the people who represented the planets were pretty weird.

FANDO Y LIS is pretty far out also.

[RapscallionJones]

My impression of Jodorowsky has always been that the guy is constant of awe of how profound he is with his movies and comics.  I've read interviews, old and new, which suggest that his ego is quite inflated.  He seemed to rein it in a bit with Santa Sangre so I'm wondering how King Shot is going to wind up.

[Scott]

My impression of Jodorowsky has always been that the guy is constant of awe of how profound he is with his movies and comics.  I've read interviews, old and new, which suggest that his ego is quite inflated.  He seemed to rein it in a bit with Santa Sangre so I'm wondering how King Shot is going to wind up.

He has a new film? How about that. These directors never top what they did when younger.