I have to say that Alejandro Jodorowsky is a master of surrealist Cult films, and his ideas, techniques, and artistic expressions all have unique charm. The Holy Mountain was released in 1973. Looking back at history, in the 1960s and 1970s, the United States was actively engaged in the Cold War and the Vietnam War with the former Soviet Union; while the United States experienced counter-mainstream cultural/social revolutions, anti-war movements, women The rise of doctrine, space exploration and so on. It can be seen naturally from this that the unique awakening and rebellious spirit of this film is also what I find the most attractive.
At the beginning of the film, the two women receive some kind of sacred ceremony in a place that seems to be a holy god. And when we got to the point, a man who resembled Jesus was lying in a filthy place. He was awakened by a crippled dwarf and a group of children with a rock. The man and the dwarf entered into a degenerate and weird city together. Ironically, he portrayed Jesus as a dirty and filthy mortal. The scene he saw when he returned to the world was the darkest side of human nature, and those dark sides were infinitely magnified: a transport truck full of bloody corpses, casually killing people on the street, and Sexual soldiers, colorful blood, and weird objects released from the body, use lizards and toads to interpret the bloody history of Christianity spreading, gouging out false eyes and putting them in the hands of prostitutes, the house full of paper Jesus Like, the priest who blasphemed Jesus and so on. These pictures are unsightly, disgusting, killing, promiscuous scenes, ugly and chaotic society, and there is no order and morality at all. The man went through everything and saw everything until he bravely climbed to the top of a tower and got the instruction of an alchemist. The warlock made his dung into gold. The man was baptized and waited with 9 other people. Embarked on the road to the sacred mountain, looking for immortality. Along the way, several people with their own desires confined their desires, and when the director intuitively expressed everyone's ugly desires, I couldn't help being shocked. Looking back, when the warlock introduced the disciples they chose, the ugly desire in their hearts had already shown some expressions. They had different professions, and the professions they were engaged in were the darkest and darkest among those professions. The infinite enlargement of the absurd corner. Artists casually molested the body of a live-action artwork. Army officers actually castrated a young soldier and thoroughly brainwashed him. Weapon manufacturers incorporated armed warfare into children's toys and daily necessities. This will really make the audience feel uncomfortable.
If you think about it carefully, these people are only representatives of this chaotic society. The warlock believes that they represent the nine planets of the solar system (of course there are only eight now). They are destined pilgrims who set out to purify themselves and purify the world. Mountain, after obtaining the technique of immortality, came to manage the world. In fact, their failure is inevitable. To be more mysterious, they have ugly desires and dirty souls, which are impossible to achieve. In reality, where there is immortality, this is just an eternal life. Good wishes. I don't have a deep research on religion, but I think this should be a manifestation of "the end of paganism". What they advocate is absurd and unreasonable doctrine, and they directly ignore science, politics, and morality.
There are a lot of religious images and bridges in this film, and there are certainly many parts that blaspheme religion. I don’t believe in any religion, but I still know a little about religion as a kind of culture. In Chinese terms, this movie is too rebellious and subverts tradition. It is really a fighter in absurdity, but this is also its charm. There are no more than two types of people who watch this movie, looking for excitement and feeling art. This movie has bloody stumps, disgusting reptiles, crazy people, naked sex organs, and many uncomfortable shots and pictures. . But in the end, my feeling was that I wandered in the words of soul, faith, desire, and humanity. I couldn’t think of any reason to criticize those uncomfortable images. They just used an exaggerated means to show one. Distorting the absurd and unrelenting world of imagination, nothing more.
When the pilgrims stood on the top of the holy mountain, the final salvation did not appear, and cameras, props, and staff gradually appeared on the screen. It seems like we are sending a message: child, all that you see is only a movie, and real life is not a movie. Alejandro Jodorowsky used a slightly unique way to bring us devoted audiences back to reality in an instant. All the absurdity and grotesqueness disappear without a trace, but it will also make you confused. You will wonder. This is Is the ending of the movie, or the movie in the movie? The so-called end point is a fictional ivory tower, so what about that world? What about this world? Walk in, you will see thoroughly but you will get lost, walk out, you will see more transparently.
If one day our world is also full of all those in the movie, what will be left of these four things? The film has a very inconspicuous little point, that is, the prostitute who has been following the pilgrimage team with a chimpanzee. In my opinion, it is really infinite irony. In the end, human beings actually returned to a chimpanzee. We will After the ugly mask was abandoned, it turned out to be a chimpanzee. This also happens to make viewers who are uncomfortable will involuntarily follow the protagonist on the road of pilgrimage, hoping to obtain their own purification and baptism. Then after watching the movie, the audience will suddenly be as I said: Oh! It turns out that we are the chimpanzee. Of course, this is just my personal understanding. Everyone has a Holy Mountain in their heart. It is not that you follow those beautiful ideals with ugly evil thoughts, but that desire is really a very strange thing, and it needs people to weigh it. Many times people cannot balance desire and humanity, morals, beliefs, souls, etc., and every step will be wrong if you take a little wrong step. I remember that when I was watching "Search" I thought of this sentence: Giving up your seat is moral and righteous, not giving up is right. In fact, many times there will be such a dilemma, it is really difficult. I don't want to use The Holy Mountain to shed light on the real problems of Chinese society. This is not my original intention.
When you close your eyes, you see darkness, when you open your eyes, you see chaos. We don't have to worry about those restricted pictures anymore, that is not life. Everyone has a Holy Mountain in his heart, but we are all mortals. Only you know how to take the pilgrimage.
Sean Mark
2012.12.9.
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