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Zardoz
There comes a point when too many good ideas become rolled up into one really bad idea. Zardoz is a textbook example of this failure. On one hand, I have to applaud it for trying to jam-pack so many different, pseudo-philosophical ideas into a low-budget picture. On the other hand, I got so lost that the entire exercise quickly grew confusing, boring, and meandering. Still, I suppose that you cannot completely discount a movie that begins with a gigantic floating head made out of stone whose first line to his spandex-wearing worshippers is, “The gun is good, but the penis is evil.” Especially when you consider that this is the least bizarre scene in the entire movie. The movie stars Sean Connery as Zed, one of these spandex-wearing, floating head-worshipping nomads. At this point in his career, Connery was desperately looking for work—this was his post-Bond, pre-The Untouchables days in which his career was in limbo and he was trying to find his footing as an actor apart from his Agent 007 typecast. During this time, he made some very, very good pictures, among them The Man Who Would Be King, Robin and Marian, and Highlander. He also made some eye-rollers, such as The Sword of the Valiant, Outland, and Meteor. Of them all, Zardoz is the only one to feature Connery running around in red underwear and a long, braided wig through the course of the entire movie. Write that down—it might be a Jeopardy question one day. In the meantime, take a wild guess which one of the above lists this one ended up on. I’ll try to fit the plotline into one paragraph, but no promises on its coherency. So, Zed turns out to be part of a mining/grazing class in a post-apocalyptic world, created by a group of immortals to keep them busy and to blind them to the truth of their existence. These immortals, an evolved form of humans, live in celestial colonies, where they walk around in skimpy clothes, do not procreate, and communicate through telepathy, which was given to them through a magic “vortex” that keeps them alive and regenerative. The stone-head god, Zardoz, was manufactured by these immortals to force Zed and his people, who have no idea of the immortals’ existence, into hard labor. They are ordered to make bread for inebriate immortals who have chosen to live as outcasts and have been banished to eternal Alzheimer’s. This group now lives in an old folk’s home on the outskirts of the immortals’ city, where they sit around in tuxedos all day and listen to jazz (an existence so carefree I wonder why the other immortals see it as punishment). Zed stumbles upon the celestial people by “accidentally” falling into Zardoz’s head, and when the immortals discover him, they decide to experiment on him, to try to understand the nature of their more barbaric ancestors. Throughout all of these revelations, Zed remains wide-eyed and reserved, which I think has more to do with boredom on Connery’s part. There are plenty more plot twists and developments, but I think I’ve probably overwhelmed you enough. Zed turns out to be much more significant in the grand design than just a misplaced barbarian, but by the time the final revelations come, we’ve been too blindsided by the overall weirdness of the film that we’re not too concerned with what’s happening on screen. Though the film also contains some effective images, they don’t add up to anything except an exercise in meandering excess. For maximum entertainment, I would imagine that Zardoz is best viewed drunk; if someone wants to try that theory and contact me with the results, I certainly wouldn’t mind the read. Today, director John Boorman (of Deliverance, Excalibur, and, more appropriately, The Exorcist 2) admits that he overshot with Zardoz—that he tried to insert too many ideas and too many strange images and instead made a movie with little coherency or excitement. The 1970s hairdos also don’t help—surely by the time we have evolved into joyless immortals, we will have learned a more practical form of hairstyle. The dialogue is also a mess, with characters sputtering jaw-dropping lines that have no relation to anything else being said. My favorite, from Connery himself: “I have heard the voice of the turtle throughout the land. It beckons me.” It is impossible to deny that his film contains some fascinating ideas—among them, a world without sex, without love, and without war. Somewhere in the heart of Zardoz is an intriguing question about love and peace only coming about with war and violence, but you’ll be hard pressed to find it without watching the film with the director’s commentary track (which mainly consists of Boorman repeating, “Okay, now, this is what I meant with this scene…”) playing on your DVD. The rest of the film is so convoluted that you’re probably better off reading 1984 again for more focused discussions on similar themes or, better yet, watching that other Sean Connery/immortal movie. Cast: Questions? Comments? E-mail me: danel_the_tinman@hotmail.com |
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