Review of The Holy Mountain (1973) by Jesus L — 14 Sep 2014

The Holy Mountain might be the most complicated movie I've ever seen. I would like to point that I had to watch the movie 3 and a half times to interpret it just to give you my thoughts! And even now I'm not sure on some details. And in all honesty there's some of you who are going to hate it because of how surreal it is. Well I was hating it too, but on repeated viewings it became obvious that the choices being made had purpose. Something to understand with movies like this is that they don't follow the traditional 3 act structure. They rely on twisting the narrative to help deliver their story where it would be restricted if it were formulated. And that's not to say the three act structure is bad; many of my favorites like Ghostbusters or Shame didn't need to have a different narrative. However, that also doesn't mean all movies that don't follow that narrative are nothing more than random crap. Movies like Holy Motors can't helped but be described as random bullshit.

For me to like a movie that's different it has to be different with a purpose and this is probably the best example I can think of right now. Essentially The Holy Mountain is a satirical assault on all of society that to this day rings depressingly true. What I loved about the satire was that it just showed you it and let you figure them out for yourself. It's characters are involved with the statements with the Alchemist lecturing our hero, referred as the thief, and the other thieves represented by the planets of our solar system. Which is a good thing since the movie never sloppy becomes preachy like a certain Hungry franchise. From the top of my head the range of statements being made follow as: glorification of violence in the media, tolerance of violence in entertainment, religion's connection to consumerism, reliance on greed and the cost willing to achieve desires, glorification of war, worshiping things of no artistic value as art, and so on. Chances are if you find something ridiculous you're supposed to.

If you wanted to judge it on a level of acting, cinematography, and directing all stood out as superb. Acting is kind of like a documentary in the sense it documents the actor's actions. To see them fearlessly tackle scenes that require the surreal, sometimes horrifying gives me even more respect for the level of trust they had with Alejandro Jodorowsky. You can show up to the movie with zero interest for the satire and still enjoy from how weird it is. And if you do care following the journey of our hero, the thief, just wanting to be a better person is an extremely relatable theme and makes the satire resonate that stronger. My only complaints are kind of subjective; it bothers me a little to see animals being harmed all though they were convincing and with purpose.

It's pretty cool to finally enjoy a work of art that actually knew what it was implying. I'm more than comfortable giving this a 9/10 and I wouldn't be surprised if I solidified it on repeated viewings. For a movie could tackle so much satire and still be relatable since 1973 isn't telling how masterful it is then I don't know what is. Finding The Holy Mountain is a challenge we all face, whether we decide to be a piece shit or golden is up to us.