Zardoz

A box office failure, John Boorman's Zardoz has developed a cult following among science fiction fans whose tastes run toward more cerebral fare, such as The Andromeda Strain and Phase IV. An entrancing if overly ambitious (by Boorman's own admission) film, Zardoz offers pointed commentary on class structure and religion inside its complex plot and head-movie visuals; its healthy doses of sex and violence will involve viewers even if the story machinations escape them. Beautifully photographed near Boorman's home in Ireland's Wicklow Mountains by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001), its production design is courtesy of longtime Boorman associate Anthony Pratt, who creates a believable society within the film's million-dollar budget. The letterboxed DVD presentation includes engaging commentary by Boorman, who discusses the special effects (all created in-camera) as well as working with a post-Bond Connery. --Paul Gaita

Twenty years later, I grabbed a movie guide and searched for Sean Connery films. "Zardoz" I found. That had to be it. I rented it and sat down and watched it all over. It was as wonderfully strange and goofy as I remembered. I loved the big floating head of the god Zardoz at the beginning. My wife hated it, and watched only 30 seconds of it. If you must have your movie spoon-fed to you, forget this one. If you're brave enough to be baffled at times, strong enough to see Sean Connery in a wedding dress, and tough enough for some laughable dialog, then you've come to the right movie.


One of the greatest, and most underrated, sci-fi flicks ever   February 4, 2002
Michael Topper (Pacific Palisades, California United States)
25 out of 29 found this review helpful

When director John Boorman made "Zardoz" back in 1973/4, he
was hot off of the success of his classic thriller "Deliverance",
and pretty much allowed to do whatever he wanted. The result
was this completely different sci-fi film "Zardoz", which took
place in the year 2293 and featured one of the most sophisticated
and complex plots of any sci-fi movie before or since. The movie
was savaged upon its release as pretentious and hard to follow,
and is today looked back on by movie guides as a campy 70s oddity, simply because it features Sean Connery running around
in oversized red underwear. However, even its harshest critics
are usually forced to admit that the film boasts an impressive visual style, which is indeed the case.

Written during the immediate post-psychedelic era, "Zardoz" was
a clear attempt to encapsulate the intellectual and spiritual
concerns of those acid-drenched times. The themes and plot
twists are quite dense--so it is not completely suprising that
many people are bewildered by it--although anyone who takes the
time to understand will find it filled to the brim with interesting and very deep ideas that were completely alien to
sci-fi at the time, and still rarely discussed in any genre of film. The plot concerns a future Earth where a group of
evolved immortals live a life of imposed isolation from the
rest of humanity, which has devolved into brutal anarchy and
violence. One of the immortals, Arthur Frame, attempts to keep
the brutals in line by appearing occassionally in a large flying stone head and impersonating a god named Zardoz (taken from "The Wizard Of Oz"). However, one day one of the Brutals named Zed (Connery) sneaks into the head and finds himself taken to the Vortex, the home of the immortals. There he finds that although they are highly advanced, with a plethora of knowledge and psychic abilities, they have failed to solve the mystery of life and many have become either renegades (punished for psychic violence and aged to senility) or apathetics (a result of the boredom of immortality). Zed is slowly educated by several of the immortals and comes to realize that he contains the key--the physical vitality and energy, embedded in the lower chakra centers--to liberating the immortals from their slow stagnation. He eventually does so, but only after confronting his own preconceived notions of god and self, which involves killing all that he once was, just as he had murdered his previous god, Arthur Frame/Zardoz, at the beginning
of the film. He then brings death back into the Vortex, which
is welcomed with open arms.

If this sounds confusing or perhaps too cerebral (some might
say pretentious) for you, then avoid "Zardoz". However, even if
one doesn't understand a word of what is going on, the visuals
will entrance: the movie was filmed in the gorgeous hills of
northern England/Ireland, the costumes have a colorful post-
psychedelic look to them, and Boorman's virtuosic directorial
style contains several notable sequences that are still discussed
by fans of the movie (most notably, the sequence where Zed receives the immortal's knowledge and powers through osmosis).
All of this is very trippy, with sequences sped up, slowed down
or reflected through mirrors, put through filters and other
tricks. And if some of what happens verges on over-the-top camp, what most critics curiously never understood was that
it was all intentional camp with touches of Monty Python-esque
humor, used to parody its own intellectual ambitions.

My favorite sequence is the one in which Zed figures out that
the crystal connects every immortal; it describes itself as
the equivalent of god with some brilliant dialogue which sounds
lifted out of a book on the Tao Of Physics. Zed then realizes that although this god is more daunting than the one (Zardoz) that he had believed in as a brutal, he must still penetrate and kill it (similar to Zen quotes which state that one must,
paradoxically, "kill the Buddha!"). He then finds (in a very trippy and symbolic sequence involving mirrors) that he
is really killing himself, or his previous ego, and must reconstruct who he is and then restore the harmony between
physical vitality and psychic/intellectual might that had been disrupted by the immortals. I cannot think of another movie
that has handled such occult spiritual topics with such wisdom,
humor or stylistic panache. Boorman's commentary in the marvellously restored DVD version is also quite interesting, as
he explains how many of the special effects and directorial
tricks were achieved, and attempts to defend the film against
all of the criticisms that have been put on it over the years.
Connery delivers a magnetic performance, and overall "Zardoz"
remains one of my favorite films, and one of the most overlooked, underrated and misunderstood movies ever.


Lovingly restored to DVD.   June 11, 2001
C. Moon (Valley Village, CA)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful

I'm going to mostly keep my review limited to what they've done with the DVD since if you dig back far enough you'll find my thoughts on the film (somewhere...) Briefly though, Zardoz is really unlike no other film. Its wonderfully muddled by an overly-think plot, and enough symbolism to ensure you'll never really get to the bottom of it. I absolutely adore this film and have seen it at least a dozen times (I'm always showing it to someone.)

The DVD finally does justice to this film--justice not done by the VHS or laserdisc. There is a considerable amount of material that was cut off the full-screen edition and even the LD was cropped. Now we can finally see Sean Connery shoot John Boorman in the head, as well as the shot where Zed sticks his finger through a painting. Visually this is SOOOO much better--the hazy effect which looked like tape degradation is now clearly the result of cinematic techniques which look awesome here. The sound is good, but it was never really that bad, so no complaints there. The director's commentary is a hoot if not super-informative, and you can (as a bonus) watch the film in French. Ironically I think Zardoz may even work better in French (but its just THAT kind of film.) There are a few other goodies, but nothing really notable. What's more outstanding is just the quality job they've done in reproducing the original film on DVD. If you are at all a fan of the film, you really do owe it to yourself to own this addition since this is the first time we've had a chance to see it the way it appeared in the theatre since its original theatrical release.

Lastly, to those who don't care for this film, the beauty of Zardoz that you're missing is how really deep it goes. Sure, it needs to be laughed at--Boorman tried to do WAY to much, but I'll take that any day over the hoards of films which do way to little. Zardoz actually does contain some greating acting and some poignant messages if you are patient with it. Sure, it looks weird...it looked weird back then! But films like this are a rare treat and the sort I enjoy tremendously, even if it isn't a -good- film in the conventional sense. I think a phrase I've used to describe it before is an 'enduring disaster'. Zardoz is definitely a mess, but it is a worthy mess--and so much more delightful on this DVD.


Not really a movie, more of an experience   March 28, 2001
Zardoz fan (Seattle, WA United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

What can I say about this movie? I had never heard of it before until one night my roommate and I were watching some documentary about science fiction on A&E (or some similar channel). They were showing various movie clips and interviewing various SF authors, and then, out of nowhere, comes this clip of ZARDOZ:

A stone head floats into view amongst masked warriors on horseback, makes a scary speech about how guns are good and the penis is bad, then a plethora of guns gushes out of the stone head's mouth.

It blew my mind.

Needless to say, as soon as possible a pilgrimage to the video store commenced and ZARDOZ was attained and watched. Twice. Then again. And again. It's a truly unique movie, after seeing it I really began to pay attention to John Boorman's other work (I've seen all of them, except for THE GENERAL and the current TAILOR OF PANAMA), this is a pretty good summation of 70's SF in general, with lots of winks to Heinlien in particular.

The only problem is that it's dated, very much a 70's tainted view of the future...so much so at times it's laughable ("You have been found guilty of psychic violence..."). And Connery running around in a red diaper the whole time is most amusing. And ok, ok, it is rather pretentious at times. But this cheesiness is half the fun. Fundamentally, it's an intelligent and challenging film that reveals more with each viewing. I shall buy this DVD right now, as I'm interested in a)a sharp picture, the VHS copies I've seen were hopelessly grainy and worn and b)Boorman's commentary, I'm sure he's got some interesting insight.

It's really quite simple, if you haven't seen ZARDOZ, you must. Immediately.


The ideal type of the Nietzschean movie   June 8, 2000
S. Maruta (Bristol, England)
18 out of 22 found this review helpful

How little sense this movie made the first time I saw it: those goofy costumes, that strange plot! But for all the weirdness I could never forget it, it remained in a corner of my head. And then, the second time I had the occasion to see Zardoz, everything fell into place: like HG WEll's Time machine, Zardoz was a sci-fi interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy.

THe plot in a few words: mankind is doomed because it is crumbling under the burden of its own historical consciousness (remember the ruined library in the beginning?), most of the men have been wiped out by a world war-type catastrophe, their descendants have fallen back into animality, struggling to survive in brutish conditions and revering the Titan-like Zardoz. Meanwhile, literally preserved in a bubble are a happy few last men, a bunch of superior spirits who have discovered the secret of immortality, or so they believe, but the secret is quite awful: immortality is sterility. Of course the immortals are playing a losing hand (Nietzsche didn't like the Last Men, the ones who come after history's pendulum movement has spent itself and come to a standstill). Apparently happy, apparently dominating, the dwindling bunch of immortals feel like prisoners in their pastoral bubble, and the only way out for them is the sweet oblivion of senility. Now just a stylistic comment: the immortals are dressed in 70s futuristic gear, the senile old farts don Edwardian formal dress: the movie was not about some hypothetic future situation, it was about the here and now of 1970s Britain; senile establishment, futile youth with the illusion they will be forever young, and the starving third world knocking at the gates of the bubble.

In Also sprachte Zarathustra, Nietzsche tells us the saviour is an Ubermensch, a "superman" who will shake off the sterility of the last men to push them back into the meaningful and necessary movement of history, launching a new cycle where others pretended there was only a single line, from beginning to end, with progress in between (Hegelian/Christian view of History/Divine Providence). Incidentally, a new cycle means both shedding (the illusion of) immortality and recovering the capacity to (pro-)create. Hence the final scene of the movie. It's interesting to see how, while the catastrophist vision of the future has receded since the 1970s, the obsession of Western societies with the illusion of eternal youth has only grown stronger...

I can't think of another movie so ladden with deep and cryptic philosophical metaphors, even more stunning as it is quite entertaining without possessing an MA in phil.