Author of adventure/thriller and horror fiction

  • Home
  • The Blog
  • Email List/Contact
  • Interviews
  • Apocalyptic
  • Horror
  • Military Thriller
  • Sci-fi/Fantasy
  • All books

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)

May 26, 2020 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Written, produced, directed, co-scored, and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky (director of EL TOPO), THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973) is a cult classic and one of my film holy grails. I finally scored a copy, and wow, what a trip. The film is a psychedelic allegory of humanity’s search for meaning, distraction into materialism and extreme politics, and spiritual war to conquer oneself, and concludes with an admonition to live an authentic life free of artificial restraint.

The film begins with The Thief, who goes into the city to make money. Finding a mysterious tower where gold is lowered on a basket in exchange for food, he scales the tower to confront the Alchemist, who takes the Thief’s excrement and turns it into gold but promises that since the Thief himself is excrement, he too can be transformed. The Thief must choose gold or enlightenment, and he chooses to apprentice to the Alchemist, who gathers a group of highly successful people representing the worst traits astrologically associated with the nine planets. They destroy their wealth and travel to the Holy Mountain, where they will overturn the immortals who run the universe and take their place. Or so they’re told…

This movie is one hell of a trip. There’s very little dialogue, with an emphasis on the score and stunning, artistic sets, every piece of which is beautiful, provocative, and spiritually symbolic as related to the Tarot, astrology, or metaphysics. Thematically, you can’t get much higher with its spiritual journey and final message. Going into it, I wondered it would be pretentious, too artsy and slow, and incomprehensible. Instead, I was presented a beautiful exploration of metaphysical spirituality with mind-blowing sets, bizarre set pieces, and solid pacing.

I haven’t seen this film streaming anywhere, I had to score it on DVD. If you can get a copy, I highly recommend it, though it’s not for everyone.

Filed Under: Movies & TV, The Blog

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Categories

  • APOCALYPTIC/HORROR
    • Apocalyptic
    • Art
    • Film Shorts/TV
    • Movies
    • Music Videos
    • Reviews of Other Books
    • Weird/Funny
    • Zombies
  • COMICS
    • Comic Books
  • CRAIG'S WORK
    • Armor Series
    • Aviator Series
    • Crash Dive Series
    • Episode Thirteen
    • One of Us
    • Our War
    • Strike
    • Suffer the Children
    • The Alchemists
    • The Children of Red Peak
    • The End of the Road
    • The Final Cut
    • The Front
    • The Infection
    • The Killing Floor
    • The Retreat Series
    • The Thin White Line
    • Tooth and Nail
  • GAMES
    • Video & Board Games
  • HISTORY
    • Other History
    • Submarines & WW2
  • MEDIA YOU MIGHT LIKE
    • Books
    • Film Shorts
    • Interesting Art
    • Movies & TV
    • Music
  • POLITICAL
    • Politics
  • SCIENCE
    • Cool Science
  • The Blog
  • WRITING LIFE
    • Craig at Work
    • Interviews with Craig
    • Reader Mail
    • Writing/Publishing

Copyright © 2023 · Author Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in