Customer Reviews

Zardoz (Widescreen)

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have to laugh at the reviewers who suggest that 'dumb' people won't like this film. As if this film is some sort of deep, intellectually stimulating masterpiece.
This film is a perfect illustration of the famous Shakespeare line, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
There are a lot of 'confusing' plot points and hallucinatory extremely obvious symbollism to make the film look deep, but when you get right down to it, the film mostly just makes some very cliched obvious statements. Excellent cinematography and gratuitous nudity notwithstanding, the film is surprisingly dull and lacks any sort of emotion or suspense to make it a worthwhile film to watch.

One afternoon, 10 years after it was released, I saw Zardoz in a moviehouse in Georgetown and didn't get it - except that Sean Connery was still very sexy. Recently, the serendipity of watching The Swimmng Pool with Charlotte Rampling suggested giving this Boorman allegory another chance. I finally get it and had fun seeing it again. Three reasons to watch Zardoz are John Boorman's emerging vision and personal iconography, the power of Sean Connery's presence and acting (especially at the point in his career when he was trying to break from the Bond type-cast), and Geoffrey Unsworth's masterful photography.

Boorman and his actors put their hearts and talent on the line. Connery pulls off wearing the red loincloth and wedding dress, pulling a rickshaw and effectively performing scenes like the lecture on libido with subtle irony. Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman, and other actresses can survive wearing go-go boots or performing nude while portraying strong women in conflict reacting to Zed's mojo. The whole cast of immortals are such good actors that you can giggle about the horror of wearing macramé tops and overly foofed hair, but they suspend your belief in the nightmare society these characters have created. Unsworth not only films this movie; he validates the vision with clear images that indulges Boorman's penchant for setting archetypes and going all Jungian on us. It is beautiful to watch and mostly poetic.

Boorman stuffs the movie with cinematic references like Welles and Peckinpah, much like the immortals have stuffed their museum. In his commentary, he admits putting too much in the film and that he would do things differently with more money and experience. At the beginning, there are moments that almost feel like Monty Python's Holy Grail or Woody Allen's Sleeper, but the movie progresses past that. The set design was interesting, but I felt that the costuming was just a little too groovy. He also admits that some of this cult classic is laughable, but the actors and the camera take it seriously enough to trap us in the Vortex and follow Zed as he searches for the truth. I am a sucker for personal films, and everybody involved made this personal to their truth.

Given what has been going on in Silicon Valley, Zardoz is still very pertinent. The irony is that celluloid projections on glass, superimposed images on film and light refracting from faceted crystals simulated computers, which were used to depict John Boorman's vision of 2293. In any remake, instead of green bread, Boorman's successor would have to direct the brutals in assembling green pizzas, and a notion of a religious mystery commanding the terminators would be named by the corruption of the phrase - Stock Option. Their god would be called Ckoption. Nyahhh! Just watch Zardoz.

This is a very strange work, a large-scale but highly personal film with many beauties as well as some dubious elements. The opening fifteen minutes are among the most memorable: Boorman begins the movie with numerous striking compositions (greatly enhanced by this pristine DVD edition), and a dreamlike, largely silent progression which highlights his storytelling talent; Zed's 'learning sequence', later in the film, is also remarkably put together. The main character's quest for truth and knowledge is mostly compelling, but brought down a bit by Boorman's simplistic, rarely subtle views on sexuality and spirituality. On the other hand, his use of mythology, classical art and fairy tales is adept and intelligent, and the twist he gives to the Indo-European functional tripartition famously noted by Georges Dumezil (sovereign-religious / physical strength-war / fecundity) is quite provocative. 'Zardoz' is a cult movie par excellence: flawed but ambitious, its weaknesses are as definitive as its strengths in defining its special flavour. This unique film should be seen by adventurous viewers.

ZARDOZ is director John Boorman's classic tale of future events. This came at a time when Sean Connery was giving up his James Bond image. ZARDOZ was one of the greatest "sleepers"of its time. This DVD combined with the film's shocking ending is very good.

This movie is satisfying on many dimensions from social commentary to sci-fi to visual impact to mystery and so forth. It is impossible to extract much logic from it when watched on commercial TV as every word and gesture has a meaning and an answer as to what will come next. Being permeated with flashbacks and revelations that come later in the movie it is not practical to tell the story as it needs to be revealed in the proper order for the cohesion to take place.

The story takes place in the future sometime after the un-named calamity has divided humans into those in enclaves, called vortexes and others that live outside. Arthur Frayne (Niall Buggy) a resident of Vortex Four and has reason to travel outside to the brutels. There he poses as a god (Zardoz). The meaning of Zardoz may be reveals in time. On one of the trips Arthur does not return; instead ZED (Sean Connery) a genetically designed assassin returns in his place. This leads to many questions as where is Arthur and is there a purpose or just coincidence that Zed is here? How did he get here? More important is he what he appears to be?

John Boorman's outré film ZARDOZ (1974) is a somewhat campy but visually stunning science-fiction dystopian fantasy set in the distant future. Sporting a ponytail, a red diaper-like loincloth, bandoliers, and thigh-high gold-digger boots, actor Sean Connery plays an clever barbarian who, on the order of his "god" Zardoz, invades The Vortex, an enclave of cultured academics and aesthetes who have grown intellectually stagnant and morally depraved after their many years of isolation from the rest of the world.

Writer/director Boorman is probably best known as the director of DELIVERANCE, James Dickey's screen adaptation of his literate and highly acclaimed novel. While DELIVERANCE is a fairly straightforward story of a clash between a group of northern city dwellers and a clan of depraved backwoodsy southerners, Boorman's ZARDOZ is a deep and complex film that requires viewers to peel back its many layers and ruminate over what they find. The lush cinematography, dazzling visuals, and quirky humor just make up the façade. Underneath is an intricate and sometimes abstruse ontological parable that addresses the nature of reality, class struggle, and the individual's responsibility to society (and vice versa). Thrown into the mix are subtle satirical comments about religion, politics, science, and academics. ZARDOZ is not an audience-friendly movie; it requires the viewer to pay attention and think. In fact, it may take repeated viewings to catch all the symbolism and subtext and thereby understand the film's full meaning. So those who prefer to have their movie themes spoon-fed to them probably won't enjoy ZARDOZ, but those who like for films to stimulate the gray matter--most notably SF fans--should find the film quite entertaining and satisfying.

The acting in the film is a mixed bag, but the principals, especially Connery and Charlotte Rampling, generally do an outstanding job. In a role that is a far cry from his sophisticated and charming James Bond, Connery is very convincing as an intelligent brute who has a difficult time wrapping his head around the philosophy of the denizens of The Vortex. (Some film historians have surmised that Connery's character is a personification of socio-political conservatism, whereas The Vortex folks are philosophically diametric and therefore represent liberalist ideals.) And Ms. Rampling provides sexual tension as a Vortex woman who is physically attracted to Connery but repulsed by what he represents.

The DVD version of this cult classic, from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, is nothing short of outstanding. The film is offered in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and the anamorphic widescreen digital transfer is simply beautiful, with few (if any) noticeable filmic or digital artifacts. Extras include the original theatrical trailer--which blatantly reflects the sensibilities of the post-60s hippie youth of the early 70s--and some radio spots narrated by Rod Serling of THE TWILIGHT ZONE fame. Also available is a feature commentary from writer/director Boorman. (The commentary is interesting, though Boorman's delivery is sometimes halting.)

In short, ZARDOZ is a fascinating SF film that will appeal to the aesthete and the intellectual (i.e., the simple-minded should steer clear). And it's delightful that the DVD age can rescue this oft misunderstood cult film from obscurity and make it available to its fans in its original format. The ZARDOZ disc is well worth the retail price, and all serious SF fans will want it in their DVD collections.

The first time you see this film it may bore and confuse you. Some of the visual elements are very engaging. But John Boorman's story telling seems disjointed in this picture. Very worth watching, but you may have to several times, and at least once with diretor's commentary inorder to get it.

A memorable film.

So bad that it's almost laughable. I can just about promise you that you will not watch it twice. .perhaps that's why you can find multiple copies of this at your local used book/music store. avoid. . . otherwise just rent it.

So asks Arthur Frayn, alias the god Zardoz, as his disembodied head floats before us and invites us to be entertained by Zardoz, a 1974 film directed by John Boorman, starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling.

Arthur Frayn loves magic tricks and says Merlin is his hero. (Did Frayn take the name of Merlin's heroic protege for himself?)

We are, as a subtitle tells us, in the twenty-third century. Here the Eternals live inside Vortex 4, a perfect English village by a lake. In the Vortex there is no death, thanks to a device called the Tabernacle, which takes the memories of an Eternal and implants them into a new fetus should the Eternal be unlucky enough to die in an accident or bored enough to take his or her own life.

That is, there is no death until Zed, one of the Brutals who live outside the Vortex, finds his way inside. Zed is strong, hypermasculine, and sexually active - - everything the Eternals no longer are.

In science fiction movies the future often looks like the present with one or two strange elements thrown in. But in the Vortex the clothes, buildings, and even the scientific instruments are so unlike ours as to make us believe we are watching a far future with little connection to our own life. Even more strange than their accoutrements is the way the Eternals speak and move. Barely perceptible movements and gestures are part of their language.

However details outside the Vortex bring this world closer to us. The clothes the Brutals wear are dirty and torn twentieth-century fashions. The Brutals live like barbarians huddled around fires in a town with an abandoned ruin that was once a municipal library.

In the Vortex not everyone is content. There are renegades, those whose negative thoughts disrupt the Eternals' perfection. The renegades are allowed to age but not die. They are the oldest Eternals.

Besides the renegades, there is another group, the apathetics. They barely move or respond. The Eternals are worried because this disease is spreading throughout the Vortex. So the equilibrium of the Vortex is deteriorating before Zed arrives.

Friend, an Eternal, wants to know from Zed what happened to Arthur Frayn, with whom Friend has been conspiring. But Zed can block his thoughts from Friend and from May, the scientist who gets permission to study Zed for a time before killing him.

By the time Friend and May learn what happened to Arthur Frayn and what Zed is it's too late to save Utopia. Finally, Zed learns what brought Utopia into being.

The renegades are the scientists, politicians, and millionaires who built the Vortex to save themselves and their children from the chaos destroying the outside world. But they were too old to adapt to eternal life and after the centuries went mad. Their spoiled, effete children now rule in the Vortex and it is they who are succumbing to apathy from the lack of a need to struggle for their existence.

The Vortex is not a distant, horrible future. It's the horrible present. The Eternals are literally us - - the generation that saw Zardoz in 1974, the children of the generation that first built the terrible weapons and created the rapacious society that caused the apocalypse. We are the children of the renegades.

In 1974 Boorman was describing the generation he saw inheriting the world. The message isn't that original - - life thrives because of the reality of death. The living feed off the dead and it's the prospect of death that inspires creativity. Sex and violence, no matter how much we might prefer otherwise, are related.

The elite who saw their (our) society crumbling around them, who felt the new Dark Ages coming, sealed themselves off the rest of the world and its lower classes. As in so-called advanced societies today a minority took most of the world's resources and left the majority of the world's people to fend for themselves. Then this elite justified their greed and lack of concern for how their behavior would affect the rest of the planet by claiming they had a duty to survive, in order to preserve and transmit the glories of human history.

When the reborn Arthur Frayn returns to Friend, as they joyfully face the end of their world, they realize it's all been a joke, a story told by an idiot. They, like us, have been "confused . . . and abused . . . and amused."

ZARDOZ is bizarrely intriquing film.But not,perhaps,for reasons Director John Boorman "wishes" it to be. Geoffrey Unsworth's mist/mystical photography is effective; scenery(near Boorman's home in Ireland)is beautiful.The score--excerpts from Beethoven's 7th Symphony--is moving. Sean Connery,as usual,has excellent screen presence delivering fine performance as mutant/killer Messiah,Zed: ZARDOZ'licensed to kill,Angel of Death.

Only Sean Connery could get away with loping around in glorified jock strap waving a .44 seeming dignified; menacing and "dramatically" engrossed in a film whose script often devolves into high-level home movie, art school project.I'm amazed the Director of EXCALIBUR and DELIVERANCE...beautifully accomplished
adventures evoking icons and archetypal themes...should stumble so often in this one. It's not terrible movie making,technically it does marvelous things on a million dollar budget But, in my estimate, much of this excursion into fairy tales;myth;religion and 2001 Kinsey Report sexuality;is bogus(if not unintentionally goofy).

Boorman's frame-by-frame commentary is fascinating. There are "light years" between what he did on film; what he THOUGHT he did; and what he wanted to do. ZARDOZ has become cult attraction. It's worth a good look(maybe you'll become enamoured of emerald green bread). But it's not the classic it traded-on, or aspired to be. It's merely a not quite wonderous odd cod of sci-fi...