The Holy Mountain (1973)

A monolithic classic of the "midnight movie" circuit, Alejandro Jodorowsky's third feature film, The Holy Mountain, remains beloved by drug-using college students and pseudo-mystics the world over. I do not mean to suggest that this is in any way a bad film, it is certainly a unique one, but it is by no means a good one. After watching El Topo in my junior year of high school, and being thoroughly bowled over and scarred by the surreal (putting it mildly) and disturbing imagery, it took me over four years to finally watch The Holy Mountain, and only because I figured I should see another Jodorowsky before The Dance of Reality. Unlike his most recent outing, The Holy Mountain is an absolute mess, a juvenile phantasmagoria of epic proportions. Featuring some of the most outrageous sequences ever committed to film, it is very easy to see why The Holy Mountain, despite being very much a product of its time that probably should have remained in its time, remains so popular. The spectacular set pieces alone are worth the price of sitting through this treatise on New Age philosophy; it is hard to describe them in words, aside from saying that they are something very few films can rival. And there is plenty of scatological humor throughout, including more than one finger being stuck up a butt. But, to digress, there is much that is relevant about this film. Jodorowsky takes jabs at imperial machinations in Latin America, military dictatorship, and consumerist culture. Even if it looks ridiculous, the message is still very powerful. And what perhaps saves this from being just some early seventies acid trip is the ending where Jodorowsky pulls aside the proverbial curtain and tells his audience to embrace reality. This is just a movie, a fantasy, it is bullshit, and Jodorowsky not only knows this, but openly acknowledges this. In a sense, the message is the exact opposite of turn on, tune in, and drop out. Jodorowsky is asking us to return to reality and confront very real issues, but in taking such a roundabout to say so, he also revels in the glorification of exactly that which he is preaching against. It is such contradictions, and love for style over substance that bogs down his earlier films. Thankfully, Jodorowsky grew up, and took his cinema to another level. This, however, is still practice.