Zardoz

This movie came out when I graduated from high school and I first viewed it with the awe and admiration of a young man seeking intriguing concepts of what the future might be like. Zardoz did not disappoint me. The question of what would happen to mankind if all our physical needs were met and we were thereby allowed to expand intellectually is fascinating. We are constantly striving to make life easier, better and to live longer. Do we really need a struggle to exist or is it merely a leftover animalistic aspect of our evolution? Personally I like living in a climate controlled surrounding versus a cave where I have to kill something with my bare hands in order to eat. For what it's worth, I saw it again as a middle aged adult and I am still impressed with some of the concepts of the movie. My 13 year old daughter was not so much impressed. I'd still give it a good review and wouldn't mind owning it for my personal collection. I guess it takes a sci-fi geek to not be so bored with it and, of course, a bare breast thrown in gets my attention just as it did back in 1974.

Zardoz is an odd - but striking - film. It has flaws, not least a wooden performance from Sean Connery (as Zed), but it has stayed with me over the past fifty years. And as countries have become increasingly obsessed with building walls to keep unwanted people out, the scenes of the "Brutals" locked out of "the Vortex", while being terrorised and killed by the "Exterminators", many of the film's images and ideas have come back to haunt me.

In fact, if perhaps only accidentally, Boorman anticipated many of the ills of the world we now inhabit - a world in which an excessively wealthy and privileged technocratic and political class talk and plan together in gated communities (the Vortex), or at privileged events like the Davos Summit, while the rest of us labour to feed and increase the wealth of these "Eternals", or slide into becoming "Apathetics".

The Eternals manage to achieve one of the dreams of today's Silicon Valley technocracy (eternal life) only to realise that it is not a blissful condition but a new burden, a reality that Swift's struldbruggs were confronted with in Gulliver's Travels.

Also noteworthy is that in Zardoz the Eternals are protected by another dream of today's techno-authoritarians - artificial intelligence (in the form of the Tabernacle, which gives them eternal life but fails them when Zed destroys it).

And like the Eternals, today's technocrats dream of conquering distant stars. The Eternals discovered that this was "just another dead end". So too, perhaps, will the technocrats.

To borrow a phrase from Henry James, Zardoz's greatest weakness is that it is something of a "large, loose, baggy monster" that tends to tell rather than show (dramatize). But perhaps there is a place for such films.

My takeaway: power groups, elites, empires and civilisations come and go, but they don't last, usually because they harbour the seeds of their own destruction. At which point all that is left to say is, "How the mighty have fallen".

"Zardoz" is either a brilliant visionary masterpiece, or the biggest blunder Sean Connery ever appeared in. I still haven't decided which (must watch it again first!). It has beautiful visuals and a surprisingly multi-layered script (the revelation of the title's meaning is a stunning moment), yet it also has parts so embarrassing (the "scientific examination of the male erection" scene comes to mind) that make you wonder how the participants managed to keep a straight face through them (the filming of this movie must have been great fun!). Ultimately, it's a film that defies ratings, but I'll try my best......*** out of 4.

Any time a film begins with a giant, 5-story stone head saying, "The gun is good. The penis is evil," you know you're in for a wild ride.

Oh, I also forgot the horribly silly prologue spoken by some dude with a magic marker moustache and an equally contrived pseudo-Elizabethan accent which is really what makes most people throw in the towel after 5 minutes. But if you can get past all that, it gets a lot better.

Once the Beethoven music begins (7th Symphony, 2nd movement--one of the most powerful compositions ever. Check it out on YouTube), the film takes on a decidedly more serious and legitimate personality. Some IMDb reviewers have said this is SOLELY due to the Beethoven music, and I suspect they're right. But hey, all is fair in film-making.

Anyway, whether it's due to the music or whatnot, the film progresses from the initial cheeziness shock, and we start to uncover some complex & interesting themes. The plot itself becomes more challenging as we realize it's not as straightforward as we had assumed at first. Some nice twists & turns, some clever deception, and a good old fashioned whodunnit type mystery come to the surface. There are some really surrealistic scenes like at the insane asylum which border on Kubrickian genius if you're into that sort of thing (the 3rd part of 2001 A Space Odyssey).

Acting is very good. You even come to accept the goofy guy with the magic marker moustache after a little while, because you realize he's just a jokester... sort of like the Shakespearian "fool".

And stay tuned because the payoff is the meaning of the word "Zardoz" which makes a powerful metaphor if you're paying attention. Overall, this is a nifty flick which--if you're into cool 70s dystopian scifis (Rollerball, Logan's Run)--you'll really enjoy. I'm tempted to rate it higher than a 7/10, but I just can't get over that gun/penis line LOL.

There seem to be a lot of people who didn't like this film. I loved it. It is a film for people who aren't perturbed by a lack of surface glitz in science fiction, and can take on the underlying meanings about immortality or the fear of death that other films rarely raise. Some of it doesn't make sense, but only if you are not paying attention. In my view, it gets straight to the point without any polish, which some people are uncomfortable about in any artform. It is not made for Star Trek fans. It is a bleak and powerful story about a cabal of ineffectual immortals who play God to an inferior but more vigourous race, and who long for death yet cannot die. They stealthily invite one of these inferiors (Connery) into their midst to solve their problems. The final scenes are extremely striking, and are set to the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony. **You just don't hear this symphony enough in the movies***. I recommend this film to anyone who likes science fiction with a small sf.