There are bad movies and there are movies so good they are bad movies. Then there is a movie like Zardoz. Written and directed by John Boorman, who would later make Deliverance and Excalibur, you will find yourself asking many times throughout the picture, whaaa? I seriously asked myself many times while I was watching whether certain recreational stimulants were used during the writing and production of this film. It is truly awful on just about every level, but the reason I gave it one-half a star instead of BOMB is because there may actually be a gem of an idea in there somewhere that I must be missing. This was 1974, after all, a time when filmmakers were trying to make their mark with arty messes that were supposed to expand our consciences. Any film whose opening images are a flying giant rock head that says, and I quote, "The penis is evil, the gun is good," and then vomits up a volley of rifles and pistols (no, I am not kidding) is worth at least some attention, but it only gets weirder from there.
Let's see if I can briefly explain the plot. The movie is set three hundred years in the future. Sean Connery, arguably the most famous actor on the planet at this point having just quit the James Bond franchise a second time just 3 years before, plays Zed, an executioner for Zardoz, the aforementioned giant rock head. These executioners ride around on horses randomly killing men and raping women In what we later find is a selective breeding program instituted by Zardoz to make more executioners. Once a year, Zardoz appears and the executioners give a tribute. Zed somehow gets inside the big giant rock head and kills a man inside. The head then flies away to a sort of Heaven area called the Vortex, where Zed meets several people who seem to be a cross between hippies and communists. Okay, this is where it gets really weird. These people, led by Consuela (Charlotte Rampling), consider him an unevolved brute and want to kill him. Consuela says no, they have to study him. She and other women then proceed with a battery of tests to study his reactions to various stimuli including danger, fear, and sexual (don't ask). For some reason, these tests are performed by beautiful women who must be topless. They conclude they have to kill him (or not). The movie keeps going back and forth on this verdict. It turns out the Commu-hippies were human once, but have evolved to where they can't die or have any normal feelings. Somehow, Zed incorporates a sort of virus into the community that wakes them up, where they alternately either try to hunt him down and kill him or have bacchanalian orgies. But in the end, they all are lusting for their own deaths. Somewhere, a revolution breaks out, Zed has the other executioners come into the Vortex who start shooting all the Commu-hippies who are chanting "Kill me!" all the while. Zed and Consuela then have a child and die of old age. The end.
And I have only scratched the surface of the depths of its weirdness. As I said earlier, there is an inkling of a message somewhere: false gods, the arrogance of the rich, the revolution of the proletariat, the importance of feeling. But it is a convoluted mess. Like Pink Floyd's The Wall, I have a feeling Zardoz probably makes a lot more sense when you're high on weed. Apparently, Burt Reynolds was up for the part of Zed, but had to bow out due to a sickness, probably one of the best things that ever happened to him career-wise. According to the director, Connery could not find work after turning down James Bond a second time and came very cheap. This probably also explains his now-notorious costume:
Remember, just 12 short years earlier, he was the epitome of cool and sexy as this guy:
Oh, how the mighty can fall. And while he made some pretty notable films after Zardoz, like The Man Who Would Be King, A Bridge Too Far, Outland and Highlander to name a few, it would be another 13 years before his career finally resuscitated with his Oscar-winning performance in The Untouchables. So this could be a cautionary tale on two levels. Whatever John Boorman was trying to get at (and good luck with that)m but also for everyone and their life. Never get so enamored of yourself and how good you are, because in a startling short time, you too could be wearing a red diaper and go-go boots doing things you will later regret and be ashamed of. And who says the movies can't teach us anything worthwhile?
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