The Holy Mountain (Uncut)(1973)
Also Known As:
Montaña sagrada, La (Mexico) 
The Sacred Mountain (International: English title) (reissue title)
 
http://imdb.com/title/tt0071615/

A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system. These seven, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide's assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek out the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal. 



Astonishingly beautiful, bloody and strange, 6 February 2000
Author: angelynx-2 ([email protected]) from Washington DC 

Astonishingly beautiful, bloody and strange surrealist film. Roughly, about a spiritual quest for enlightenment, truth and immortality; but that doesn't begin to describe Jodorowsky's Fellini-like flood of imagery and symbolism. Jodorowsky himself plays "The Master", an occult adept who assembles a group of people representing the planets of our solar system (a Christ figure for Earth) to ascend the Holy Mountain and gain the secret of eternal life. The qualities of the individual planetary cultures are both based on, and distorted from, their classic meanings in astrology and alchemy - you really need to have some basic reading in occultism to follow this movie - and the stunning ending shot takes the theme of illusion vs. truth to a completely different plane.


*** WARNING *** 
This film may contain scenes that offend or upset certain viewers. This film is for mature audiences only.

Certification: Italy:VM14 (2001) / Australia:MA (2007 re-rating) / South Korea:18 / Netherlands:18 / UK:18 (re-rating, uncut) / UK:X (original rating, cut version) / West Germany:18 / France:-16 / USA:R / Hong Kong:III



Alejandro Jodorowsky ... The Alchemist (as Alexandro Jodorowsky)
Horácio Salinas ... The Thief (as Hector Salinas)
Zamira Saunders ... The Written Woman (as Ramona Saunders)
Juan Ferrara ... Fon, He whose planet is Venus
Adriana Page ... Isla, She whose planet is Mars
Burt Kleiner ... Klen, He whose planet is Jupiter
Valerie Jodorowsky ... Sel, She whose planet is Saturn
Nicky Nichols ... Berg, He whose planet is Uranus
Richard Rutowski ... Axon, He whose planet is Neptune (as Richard Rutowsky)
Luis Lomeli ... Lut, He whose planet is Pluto
Ana De Sade ... The Prostitute
Chucho-Chucho ... The Chimpanzee
Letícia Robles ... Bald Woman 1 (as Leticia Robles)
Connie De La Mora ... Bald Woman 2

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Runtime: 114 mins
 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071615/

Codecs: 

Video : 1.09 GB, 1362 Kbps, 23.976 fps, 720*304 (Unknown), XVID = XVID Mpeg-4, 
Audio : 370 MB, 448 Kbps, 48000 Hz, 6 channels, 0x2000 = AC3 DVM, CBR, 

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I don't think this film can be "reviewed" in the normal sense of the word, only experienced as one would a painting or a piece of music. Having only seen it two nights ago, I'm not even sure I've fully processed it. In any case...

To begin, the images, the images. The first 20 minutes contain some of the most astonishing images I've seen, combining Christian iconography, Latin American history, futurism, mysticism, and political commentary. As if Fellini had a sinister twin working with his leftover film and props. As the film progresses I thought the set pieces became a little dated and, frankly, I experienced sensory overload.

I'm sure a lot of viewers would reject this film as pointless or indulgent. Yeah...so? I can't say I understood exactly what Jodoworsky was getting at (if anything), or if it would even make an impact on my view of the world. But if film is to be defined as image over everything else, then Jodoworsky is certainly some sort of master filmmaker. I'd rather watch something like this, filled with ideas (however pretentious), than a plot-driven movie with nothing more on its mind than wrapping up loose ends for the audience. 

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Despite what you may have heard, "The Holy Mountain" is more absurd than surreal, more funny than disturbing. Don't worry if your tarot cards are gathering dust and you can't remember the difference between wands and swords--such occult knowledge might help you achieve a few "Oh I get that!" moments during the middle of the film, but the heaps of blatant symbolism aren't really the point. In fact, it may just be that the point is: there is no point. When you see a fat man dressed as the Virgin Mary handing out crucifixes under a sign that says "Christs For Sale", you can rack your brain trying to figure out what kind of statement that makes about society--or you can laugh. When you witness "The Government" indoctrinating children with a hatred for the nation of Peru by printing up comic books called "Captain Captain Against The Peruvian Monster", you can lament the plight of innocents being manipulated for selfish ends--or you can laugh! This film bombards the viewer with outlandish images and juxtapositions like these in rapid fire throughout, so it's easy to get bogged down or confused or numb. The secret to appreciating it all is to come prepared to chuckle--some things you'll "get", some things you won't, but most everything is twisted and absurd and, in some way, funny. Now when you get to the end and Jodorowsky winks at you, you can wink right back.

Basically, if you can appreciate absurdity and profundity and the absurdity of profundity (not to mention enormous, colorful sets), you'll find a lot to like here.

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Most of the people who complain about this film say they don't get it and also claim that Jodorowsky went overboard with the use of symbolism and shocking imagery. One reviewer said this:

"It's an episodic documentary that re-enacts much of the suffering and cruelty of past history and man's unceasing struggle to gain enlightenment and immortality which is said to be found on the top of the holy mountain."

Later, in the same review, he states:

"To appreciate this film one needs to be widely read to appreciate the symbolism which permeates the whole movie."

While this movie is up to interpretation, I think this reviewer, like many people who have seen "The Holy Mountain," are reading WAY too much into the symbolism. In the movie, the characters go to seek absolute truth which they believe is on top of the Holy Mountain. They go through many confusing and mystical treks until they finally reach the mountain. When they get there, the wise men are fake and Jodorowsky & Co. laugh at how their trip was pointless. Then Jodorowsky says "Zoom out camera" and the camera zooms out to show the sound crew and cameramen. The whole point of the film is pointlessness. It reveals the absurdity of religion and mysticism. Jodorowsky shows an overwhelming slew of religious and mystical symbolism and many are led to believe that they are significant. However, at the end Jodorowsky lifts the veil and shows that it was all meaningless. Even the movie is an illusion

In the film Jodorowsky says that "There have been hundreds of holy mountains," and he goes on to list several. I feel that Jodorowsky showed so much symbolism and shocking imagery together in order to emphasize the fact that all religious and mystical symbols are equally absurd. Those who think all of this symbolism actually all means something either fell for Jodorowsky's joke, or didn't watch the film to its conclusion (or both). I truly believe that the end of this film reveals the true nature of the message Jodorowsky was trying to get across. The film is meaningless and an illusion, just like religion and the idea of higher powers.

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How does one start describing writer/director/star/master-of-ceremonies Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain? Sensational, outrageous, in-your-face, (the much overused phrase) one-of-a-kind, hilarious, self-indulgent, dangerous, and enlightening could be some words, and there could be more. But these are just symbolic of what one goes into seeing the movie. And what is it to see a movie, to experience it, Jodorowsky, I think anyway, is essentially asking? What about faith, or belief that there can be a way to surpass mortality and live forever? Is there truly any basis to become more than just flesh and bones and organs and love and hate and desire and greed? Perhaps, in the end, it might just be art itself. The Holy Mountain is one (bleeping) crazy art-house picture experience, where the filmmaker asks it's audience to either go on the journey and be open to whatever he's liable to let out of the floodgates of his consciousness, or if to be closed off then to might as well leave. So as it goes, really, with organized religion, which his own character Jodorowsky plays- the Alchemist- could be identifiable as.

As I left the theater I kept on thinking about what it is to put total trust and confidence in a "master", someone who seems to have all the knowledge and experience to take people to higher planes. At the core, is what the Alchemist can do for the nine "planet" representatives any different than what a priest or a rabbi or a monk can promise? There is a level of intellectual stimulation, aside from the obvious emotional connection to the immense level of surrealism, that keeps one from thinking that this becomes all weird for its own sake. Unlike El Topo, however, Jodorowsky this time is much more in control of his own delirious dreamscapes and, in a sense, the genuine consciousness he creates in his Holy Mountain. He gives us, at the start, something a little much akin to El Topo with piling on Christian symbolism and imagery like its got to get into our heads right away. This part, actually, might be somewhat weaker in comparison with the rest of the film, if only because one wonders where the hell this is all going; a Jesus-figure, who comes into a village loaded with circus 'freaks' and gawkers at such 'freaks', and is put into plaster-casting to make more Jesus figures, which he demolishes except for one which he carries with him for a little while.

There's more than just this, but for the first twenty minutes, which is practically silent and without dialog, we get immensely rich but sort of free-form symbolism, some that is great (the scene with the frogs in the representation of the Spanish conquistadors is absolutely uproarious), and some that isn't, like a strange scene in a church. But soon Jodorowsky moves it along to 'Jesus' entering the realm of the Alchemist, and going under his tutelage (and learning how, mayhap, gold can be the end result of literal excrement), learns about who the other members to go on the journey to the holy mountain will be. It's here that Jodorowsky digs deep into the nature of the period he was filming in and how fascinating and perverse human beings can be. These other members are all shown in vignettes to be "manufacturers", for the most part, of weapons, clothing, architecture, political espionage, and as a police force of a sort. More than ever Jodorowsky throws out the outrageousness to eat up, and really it actually never shows (and maybe it's just me as a jaded 21st century guy) to be as shocking as one might expect. Yes, it's extremely violent (watch out for your genitals, by the way, when around these folks), extraordinarily sexually charged (sex machines anyone?), and meant to be in poor taste and so over the top you don't know what is up or down. At first, I thought it couldn't get much better, as far as sheer surrealist entertainment value goes.

Yet as the last section develops, as the Alchemist takes his pupils to the mountain to meet their promised fates, there's more depth than I would have expected, even from all that preceded it as already containing cast quantities of rich socio-political-sexual commentary and prodding knife stabs at correctness. Religion itself, as Bunuel did in the past, is questioned very strongly and seriously, however still in the context of Jodorowsky having his own subjective approach. Of course, the director- who happens to be at the top of his game here stylistically, second only to Santa Sangre as perhaps his most accomplished effort- did become a shaman himself to make this movie, so there is a level of legitimate connection to what religion says to provide us. At the same time, Jodorowsky is, all the same, questioning what it means to submit yourself to indoctrination, to "nothingness" as the Alchemist says to his pupils in their trances. It's not just Christianity that needs to be taken with a grain of salt, although that is very significant in the final section (the 'monster' over the boat, for example, has a lot that can be read into it, ala sin), but that it has to be in the person to understand what immortality REALLY means. The final revelation at the table on the mountain nails it on the head, and suddenly (or not so suddenly) things become clearer; the final lines by the Alchemist (or rather, Jodorowsky himself), make it a very poignant end to what has been a delirious, hilarious trip into consciousness expansion...

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* The film is based on "The Ascent of Mt. Carmel" by St. John of the Cross and "Mt. Analogue" by Rene Daumal.

* Before filming began, director Alejandro Jodorowsky spent a week without sleep under a Zen Master's direction and lived communally with the film's cast for a month.

* At a projected budget of $1,500,000 (in USA dollars), it was to have been the most expensive Mexican film production to date. The film reportedly cost only half that amount.

* The Thief has no dialogue except for a single instance of saying "yes" throughout the film. Jodorowsky himself even dubbed the actor's enraged screams, upon discovering the statues created in his likeness.

* The crucified animal carcasses were borrowed from a local restaurant, which were then served to customers upon being returned.

* Jodorowsky recalls that the chameleon and toad circus was difficult to prepare for and film. The toads themselves were hard to dress, as "their urine was like acid," and they'd keep filling up with air and then blowing it out, trying to escape. The chameleons, on the other hand, were incredibly sedate, and the cameraman would have to leave the camera rolling for long periods of time before they'd even flick their tongues or move their eyes.

* The Alchemist's shoes were inspired by those of Frankenstein's monster, having both heels and high platforms as well.

* The "tumor" that the priests pull out of the back of the Thief's neck was an octopus the filmmakers purchased at a local market.

* Much of the sound in the film was improvised by Mexican sound effects specialist Gonzalo Gavira, yet nonetheless gained the admiration of American director William Friedkin, who in turn hired him to do sound work for The Exorcist (1973).

* During the boating sequence, Jodorowsky had intended to shoot a scene where the group leaps into the ocean to "get in the infinite waters." The cast proceeded to leap in, then promptly began to drown. The crew was so busy trying to rescue them that nothing of the scene ended up being shot.

* During Axon's hallucination, the battling dogs were indeed real fighting dogs.

* The movements from the opening scene ritual are actual movements of a Japanese tea ceremony. Jodorowsky states that the girls themselves were not actual actresses, merely two people who "wanted to have a spiritual experience. They were searching for their own truth, the naked truth."

# SPOILER: George Harrison, himself a big fan of Jodorowksy's work after having seen Topo, El (1970), was originally up for the role of The Thief, but disagreed with the director over what he considered gratuitous nudity -- particularly, the shot where his anus is bathed. Rather than cast a stand-in, or remove the shot altogether, Jodorowsky stood his ground, prompting Harrison to drop out. Jodorowsky later expressed some regret over this in the Anchor Bay DVD commentary, noting that Harrison's involvement could have exposed the film to an even larger audience.

# SPOILER: The crew didn't obtain any permits for the shot of the helicopter setting down in the street, merely had an actor in a police uniform shop traffic while they filmed, then proceeded to run off after the shot was complete.

# SPOILER: During the decapitation scene, the actor actually struck Jodorowsky for real, cutting his neck and nearly killing him. Jodorowsky reflects that had the sword actually been real, he would indeed have been decapitated.