well, as I bought this film on Friday, of course I watched it Friday night. I mean, it’s Zardoz. You might never have heard of the film, but if you’ve been on the Internet for any length of time, you’ve seen Sean Connery in his costume.
And if you have not, you’ve seen it now.
The film is dated 1974, and it was filmed in 1973, but this is a very British and very 1960s movie.
The plot involves a bifurcated or trifurcated story set in 2293, 320 years in the future. A flying stone head, the god Zardoz, distributes guns (but no ammunition seemingly aside from what might be in the guns) to Connery-clad Brutals. The orange-clad ones are Exterminators, tasked by Zardoz to hunt down other Brutals, the normal ones, and exterminate them to keep them from overpopulating or just because this is a 60s British movie. However, I guess the Exterminators are also making the other non-Exterminator Brutals raise grain for Zardoz. Which, it turns out, is a front for the Eternals, a group of people living in luxury, albeit a early to mid-20th century luxury. The Eternals are protected in a society run by a crystal-based AI called the tabernacle, written/built mostly by their parents who locked them into one or more protective societies called Vortexes, and they have evolved beyond sleep, instead doing hippie-dippy group meditation or something. They’ve got their problems, too–some of them have become Apathetic and don’t bother to move, and others who commit thought crimes are artificially aged, so a group of old people live in permanent old age in an old folks’ home. But Zed, Connery’s character, sneaks aboard Zardoz and lands in a Vortex. He is taken into custody, studied, and displayed as a curiosity even as one Eternal, played by Charlotte Rampling, wants to destroy him before he can destroy the Eternals.
As I mentioned, this is a very 60s British movie with more of an idea and cinematic execution of an idea than a gripping or even plausible plot. It starts with the floating head of the Eternal flying the, well, flying head of Zardoz explaining some of what he was doing followed by the head barfing guns and the Exterminators taking them and Sean Connery shooting the camera/audience before the titles. Some of the scenes and set pieces are very cinematic and perhaps influenced a bit by expressionism of some sort, and the sets have a spareness you might find in Blake’s 7 or The Prisoner. And the ending where Zed takes a woman, impregnates her, and family snapshots as they grow older with their single son and then die leaving little trace (even though Zed had received all knowledge of the Tabernacle through “touch teaching” which was a very groovy sex montage) kind of leaves one wondering, and not in a good way.
I mean, would man evolve that much and that way in only 300 years? The Brutals getting shot looked like they were dressed for the mid-20th century. And why were they shooting brutals who were producing their food? Was the whole thing a long plan designed to introduce Zed to destroy the Eternals, some of whom inherited the life and were bored with it? One could say It’s a timely metaphor for Western Civilization in the 21st century if one wanted to, and one could maybe write an academic paper on it that few people would read. Fewer people than would watch Zardoz in the 21st century, perhaps.
Yeah, so a cinematic idea more than a movie. And more an event to witness because that photo of Connery is floating around.
Photos of Charlotte Rampling?
I covered that when I talked about Farewell, My Lovely in 2021.
I know, I know. Dirty pool making you click More for that link. But I just increased your online engagement, which means I will earn an extra $.00 on your visit today! Which brings my total earnings per click to $.00!
