Zardoz (18.)
Directed by John Boorman. 1974.
Starring Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sarah Kestelman, John Alderton and Niall Buggy. 105 mins. Released on Blu-ray by Arrow Films
The poster to the original film version of Lolita had the tagline How Did They Ever Make A Film of Lolita? The poster for John Boorman's sci-fi allegory/send up/head trip should have had the tagline How And Why Did They Make A Film Like Zardoz? It is a genuinely perplexing movie. Ok, it was the 70s, but even so. Despite coming on the back of the massive success Boorman enjoyed with Deliverance, it is almost inexplicable that such a film should come to be made, and to be made and released by 20th Century Fox.
It's about a post apocalyptic future, 2293 if you're counting, where the elite have achieved immortality and live in enclosed communities. The rest of humanity fights it out in the ruins where a group called the Exterminators charge around killing everybody or subjugating them to work the land. They are controlled by a giant flying head, called Zardoz, that they worship as a god and which rewards them by spewing out guns for them to use. At the start of the film one of the Exterminators, Zed (Connery) sneaks on board the Zardoz head and flies to the other side to see inside The Eternals' society. The scantily clad Eternals spend immortality farming the land, baking bread, voting on stuff and wishing they could die.
Actually, by the standards of dystopian sci fi, that plot doesn't sound too out there; it is the way Boorman handles it that is so odd. We could start with Connery's outfit – he spends most of the film dressed only in thigh length kinky boots, thick red trunks and a pair of matching bullet belts slung over each shoulder.
The plot takes some following, and even more swallowing, but it is the point of it all that really escapes you. The film opens with a monologue by the title character (Buggy), the man behind the big flying head and the fake religion, that aims to state the theme and purpose of the piece, but it doesn't clarify anything. It states that it is a story “full of mystery and intrigue – rich in irony, and most satirical” and you keep assuming that those words might take on some relevance somewhere along the way but they never do. The prologue has prompted you to see the funny side of it but, though Zardoz is impossible to take seriously, it is still an incredibly heavy film. You don't go chucking Beethoven 7th symphony around on the soundtrack if your intentions are lighthearted.
(I really hate that prologue. It is badly filmed, annoying worded and performed, doesn't give you any insight into what follows, indeed probably misleads you, and makes you mistrust the film even before it has started. Without it the film would open with the intriguing and compelling shot of the big head flying towards the Exterminators. It is no surprise to discover that it was forced on Boorman by Fox, rightly fearful that nobody got what the film was about.)
The film seems fired up about something, but what exactly? Being freed from the spectre of death has robbed the Eternals of their motivation, and the film seems to mirror their dilemma. It is animated but is just as mystified as to the point of its existence.
Unsurprisingly a flop on its initial release, it has equally unsurprisingly become a cult hit on the home market. It's too weird not to be a cult film, especially as it offers the chance to see some big name performers look like complete idiots. And whatever its flaws, Zardoz is always visual arresting, beautifully photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth ( 2001) who does wonders capturing the County Wicklow locations.
Watching Zardoz for the first time in many years I was hoping to join the happy cult, get carried along by its wackiness, but there's something very resistible in Zardoz. “Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead.” Now I have no idea if the last line chronologically of Pulp Fiction is inspired by Zardoz but certainly Zed is death, or the death force, in the film. He is Dignitas in a Red Nappy. When it comes to dark it's hard to top a film where almost every characters conception of a happy ending is to be killed. But that's only a part of it; Zardoz is a thoroughly sour, nihilistic vision. It seems to be against everything. The future human elite are dull effete pansies, boringly voting on every decision they make. Every tenet of civilisation is mocked and ridiculed, while brutality and violence is viewed as the essential lifeforce. Its message seems to be whatever we do to improve ourselves is doomed to failure so we should get acquainted with digging in the dirt for food because that's all we're really good for. The best we can hope for is that the mud will photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth.
Extras.
A mixture of items taken from the original DVD release and some new items produced by Arrow for this release. A Boorman commentary, the original trailer and radio spots are already available on the DVD. A series of interviews with Boorman and members of his crew and an appreciation of the film by British director Ben Wheatley (Sightseers, A Field In England) are new for this Blu-ray edition.
In a film like Zardoz you turn to the extras in the hope of finding a few answers but they largely disappoint. The only real insight we get into what the film is about is Boorman saying that the initial spur for the film was the gap between rich and poor. It is film you might like to hear some analysis from some outside voices, a critic or academic, but Wheatley's appreciation only offers a nostalgic look at why he likes the film, which is that he saw it at an impressionable age.
One mystery it does solve is what on earth of Sean Connery was doing in this film. The answer is that after quitting Bond nobody much wanted to employ him, believing him to be too closely associated with 007. Younger readers will find it hard to credit how long it took such a formidable screen presence to be accepted as himself but I'd say it wasn't until The Untouchables in 1987 that he stopped being primarily an ex-James Bond.
Directed by John Boorman. 1974.
Starring Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sarah Kestelman, John Alderton and Niall Buggy. 105 mins. Released on Blu-ray by Arrow Films
The poster to the original film version of Lolita had the tagline How Did They Ever Make A Film of Lolita? The poster for John Boorman's sci-fi allegory/send up/head trip should have had the tagline How And Why Did They Make A Film Like Zardoz? It is a genuinely perplexing movie. Ok, it was the 70s, but even so. Despite coming on the back of the massive success Boorman enjoyed with Deliverance, it is almost inexplicable that such a film should come to be made, and to be made and released by 20th Century Fox.
It's about a post apocalyptic future, 2293 if you're counting, where the elite have achieved immortality and live in enclosed communities. The rest of humanity fights it out in the ruins where a group called the Exterminators charge around killing everybody or subjugating them to work the land. They are controlled by a giant flying head, called Zardoz, that they worship as a god and which rewards them by spewing out guns for them to use. At the start of the film one of the Exterminators, Zed (Connery) sneaks on board the Zardoz head and flies to the other side to see inside The Eternals' society. The scantily clad Eternals spend immortality farming the land, baking bread, voting on stuff and wishing they could die.
Actually, by the standards of dystopian sci fi, that plot doesn't sound too out there; it is the way Boorman handles it that is so odd. We could start with Connery's outfit – he spends most of the film dressed only in thigh length kinky boots, thick red trunks and a pair of matching bullet belts slung over each shoulder.
The plot takes some following, and even more swallowing, but it is the point of it all that really escapes you. The film opens with a monologue by the title character (Buggy), the man behind the big flying head and the fake religion, that aims to state the theme and purpose of the piece, but it doesn't clarify anything. It states that it is a story “full of mystery and intrigue – rich in irony, and most satirical” and you keep assuming that those words might take on some relevance somewhere along the way but they never do. The prologue has prompted you to see the funny side of it but, though Zardoz is impossible to take seriously, it is still an incredibly heavy film. You don't go chucking Beethoven 7th symphony around on the soundtrack if your intentions are lighthearted.
(I really hate that prologue. It is badly filmed, annoying worded and performed, doesn't give you any insight into what follows, indeed probably misleads you, and makes you mistrust the film even before it has started. Without it the film would open with the intriguing and compelling shot of the big head flying towards the Exterminators. It is no surprise to discover that it was forced on Boorman by Fox, rightly fearful that nobody got what the film was about.)
The film seems fired up about something, but what exactly? Being freed from the spectre of death has robbed the Eternals of their motivation, and the film seems to mirror their dilemma. It is animated but is just as mystified as to the point of its existence.
Unsurprisingly a flop on its initial release, it has equally unsurprisingly become a cult hit on the home market. It's too weird not to be a cult film, especially as it offers the chance to see some big name performers look like complete idiots. And whatever its flaws, Zardoz is always visual arresting, beautifully photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth ( 2001) who does wonders capturing the County Wicklow locations.
Watching Zardoz for the first time in many years I was hoping to join the happy cult, get carried along by its wackiness, but there's something very resistible in Zardoz. “Zed's dead baby, Zed's dead.” Now I have no idea if the last line chronologically of Pulp Fiction is inspired by Zardoz but certainly Zed is death, or the death force, in the film. He is Dignitas in a Red Nappy. When it comes to dark it's hard to top a film where almost every characters conception of a happy ending is to be killed. But that's only a part of it; Zardoz is a thoroughly sour, nihilistic vision. It seems to be against everything. The future human elite are dull effete pansies, boringly voting on every decision they make. Every tenet of civilisation is mocked and ridiculed, while brutality and violence is viewed as the essential lifeforce. Its message seems to be whatever we do to improve ourselves is doomed to failure so we should get acquainted with digging in the dirt for food because that's all we're really good for. The best we can hope for is that the mud will photographed by Geoffrey Unsworth.
Extras.
A mixture of items taken from the original DVD release and some new items produced by Arrow for this release. A Boorman commentary, the original trailer and radio spots are already available on the DVD. A series of interviews with Boorman and members of his crew and an appreciation of the film by British director Ben Wheatley (Sightseers, A Field In England) are new for this Blu-ray edition.
In a film like Zardoz you turn to the extras in the hope of finding a few answers but they largely disappoint. The only real insight we get into what the film is about is Boorman saying that the initial spur for the film was the gap between rich and poor. It is film you might like to hear some analysis from some outside voices, a critic or academic, but Wheatley's appreciation only offers a nostalgic look at why he likes the film, which is that he saw it at an impressionable age.
One mystery it does solve is what on earth of Sean Connery was doing in this film. The answer is that after quitting Bond nobody much wanted to employ him, believing him to be too closely associated with 007. Younger readers will find it hard to credit how long it took such a formidable screen presence to be accepted as himself but I'd say it wasn't until The Untouchables in 1987 that he stopped being primarily an ex-James Bond.
