Jodorowsky rocked the cinematic world on the basis of a trio of controversial and ground-breaking films made over a brief period from 1968 to 1973—Fando y Lis, El Topo, and our little metaphysical monolith of interest. His films were very psychedelic, very anti-establishment, and, yes, very strange. Fando y Lis was a road trip featuring an impotent and a paraplegic, while El Topo was an acid Western that virtually invented the Midnight Movie phenomenon back when “cult film” meant you got stoned and stared at the screen, forgot the experience, and then went back for more the next dark weekend.
The Holy Mountain, however, was an entirely different exotic beast and appeared to consolidate all of the filmmaker’s various philosophical pursuits into one gigantic mind fuck of an epic film. Without getting specific, or plot-driven (I am of the “figure it out yourself” camp; otherwise known as “keep it weird, stupid”), the story follows the human desire to understand the twin quests for enlightenment and immortality. Jodorowsky states at one point as the narrator/Alchemist: “With the correct formula, any human being can become enlightened. The Immortals are a group. If we are to succeed, we must cease to be individuals, and become a collective being. Burn your money.”
Which is all very Communist and, ironically, a bit Catholic, but Jodorowsky is not that simple in his cinematic symbols. (And ignores the question: if one has destroyed said currency, how does one purchase essential Pop Tarts?) The director/storyteller/Alchemist accumulates various types of characters, which each represent a different planet in our solar system, and they journey towards aforementioned enlightenment while ridding oneself of…well, the self which is riddled with needless ego-riddled selfishness.
Jodorowsky’s message is comical, heavy, shocking and sometimes overly violent, often overtly sexual, but never boring. Yes, he’s obscure and a bit of a mad genius, but the man feels life roaring around him, and wants to understand its mysterious essence. By the time the film has reached its Lotus Island revelations, after various scenes of death and rebirth at journey’s end in the surreal search for La Montaña Sagrada, the Holy Mountain, one is no longer thinking of the Shock and Awe sequences as scandalous. The Alchemist has gathered his tripped-out tribe based upon a meticulously calculated group of symbolic individuals, and the answers…yes, those answers to Life’s Little Tricky Questions aren’t as interesting as Jodorowsky’s unexpected yet poignant monologue in the closing scene.
One is forced to think about man’s place in the universe and why, incredibly, one truly needs to forget all of the philosophical adventures and “What does it all mean?” ignorant posturing, and just get on with life. Enlightenment and Immortality aren’t goals; they are merely signposts on the path towards the Holy Mountain, and one must eventually, always, inevitably, head back home to where existence really becomes defined.
Postscript: the soundtrack, re-released in 2007, was crafted by Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane, and jazz great Don Cherry, and is worth checking out; likewise, the soundtrack composed by the filmmaker from one of his other seminal works, the head-exploding western, also highly recommended, known as El Topo.
