Review of The Holy Mountain (1973) by Cary C — 14 Feb 2008

I've been mulling over for days how to review The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky's follow-up to the landmark El Topo. Its a wildly ambitious work; given a much larger budget than was open to him will El Topo, Jodorowsky let's his fascination with surreal mysticism go wild.

For those who thought El Topo was a most bizarre film, The Holy Mountain is even more symbolic and surreal; this is one of those films where the viewer repeatedly uttering 'what the fuck?' is totally justified.

Jodorowsky's obsessions with Christianity, New Age religion and sexuality are even more dominant in this film than El Topo, and it is clear that Bunuel and Kenneth Anger are major influences, while the set pieces and costuming here are often so expansive and visually compelling its hard not to think that Jodorowsky was himself an influence on Matthew Barney's similarly extravagant Cremaster Cycle.

While this is a bigger film that El Topo, I'm highly hesitant to call it a better film. While El Topo was a film embraced by the US counter-culture The Holy Mountain was a film that was made specifically for it and in many ways its plays to all the drug-fueled excesses of the movement as much as its strengths.

There is a charm to the more simply told story of El Topo and its Peckinpah-esque Western violence missing from this film which at times confuses 'grandiosity' with 'better'. Nevertheless, this is a terrific and surreal entry into the ouevre of one of cinema's most visionary and visual directors.