False Christs and Charlatans

A few days a go I saw a film called The Holy Mountain on the advice of a friend. I didn't know anything about the movie, which is unusual for me, but I knew that the imagery would be far out, because this is what my friend promised, and he does not lie. When I say far out, I mean it both mockingly, as a child of a post-post hippie era, and honestly. The imagery is indeed powerful and rather indelible. Or at least it left a stain.

The film was directed by Alexandro Jodorowsky, who is really the false Christ and charlatan of my title. If he did not exist, I would have to have invented him. Born long ago in a mining village in Chile to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, he grew up a strange, sexualized childhood apparently plagued by visions of enormous floating monoliths. After college he studied mime in Paris with Marcel Marceau, and after that he moved to Mexico where he directd some hundred theater productions. After that he directed Fando and Lis, el Topo, and The Holy Mountain. Today he is known for writing comics, which he does with such artists as Moebius. But as much as that varied and unusual career, he is exceptional for his personality and for his public statements, which bear the unmistakable mark of an unmanageably huge ego, and an avant-gardist's predisposition to shock and speak in vagaries.

The Holy Mountain Is more an "experience" than a coherent film. Seemingly generated from dozens of weighty, violent, sexual, religious, and absurd symbols and relationships, the film essentially follows a Christ figure to his enlightenment. But like Robert Downey Sr.'s Greaser's Palace, it can't be bothered to stick to a single strand in its Christ-centered narrative. Unlike Greaser's Palace, it is unburdened by an obvious sense of humor. This, other than its narrative disarray and excessiveness, is perhaps its biggest failing. It was hard for me to countenance the absurd goings-on of this film without laughing at the absurdity of the symbols and imagery. However, I was never given permission to laugh. The film acted (insofar as they can do that) as if it were the key to the one ultimate truth, its tone was that of a profound religious experience. Perhaps I lack the intended perspective of a teenager of the early 70s on acid.

This is something of a new age film, at least insofar as it peddles pseudoreligious mumbo jumbo as spiritual insight. But it does merit a viewing. It contains imagery that is actually fairly shocking and original. Dozens of crucified lambs are paraded through the streets in a scene PETA would not approve of. An art gallerist displays sex machines which, despite how it sounds, is an amazing feat of both design and puppetry. An old naked man hold his breasts, which are the heads of ocelots, and sprays milk all over a spiritual seeker. Many other moments will sit in your head for days- and for someone like me, that is the price of admission.

I give this sucka **1/2 out of ****.
It's a mess, but it's a very interesting mess.

By the way, if you can hunt down Greaser's Palace, do so. It's a very off the wall, tongue-in-cheek telling of the story of Jesus. It is profane, touching, hilarious, and not quite right in the way that every Downey Sr. film I've seen is not quite right. There's even a cameo by Robert Downey Jr. as a child. If you can't find GP, try Hugo Pool or Putney Swope.