Posted by: detourmag on March 6, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Zardoz (John Boorman, 1974)
Have you ever wanted to see Sean Connery wearing a diaper? Look no further than Zardoz, John Boorman’s self-indulgent treatise on classism. Set in 2293, Connery plays Zed, one of the Exterminators — red-diapered and bandoleer-strapped killers who wear dual-faced masks fashioned to look like their god Zardoz. Zardoz is a giant disembodied head with a striking resemblance to Karl Marx. It floats through the wastelands preaching, “The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds, and makes new life to poison the earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the gun shoots death, and purifies the earth of the filth of Brutals. Go forth and kill!”
The Exterminators lord over the Brutals for Zardoz, who in exchange for grain spews gobs of guns. But both groups are exploited by those living in “The Vortex”—a hermetically sealed world inhabited by the Eternals. Having lived for too many years, the Eternals have sacrificed their humanity for immortality. Even in the Utopian Vortex, there are social strata; the Apathetics (those who have given up) and the Renegades (those who have sinned against their fellow Eternals). Eternals have given their control to an all-encompassing computer overlord, The Tabernacle. Got all that straight?
Zardoz falters under the weight of too many ideas. Stuffed to the gills with philosophical hokum and themes of eugenics, self-determinism, and aging, the film is a visually interesting but hopelessly muddled failure that’s best known for Connery’s killer outfit. How was it made? After the success of Deliverance, Boorman was given complete creative freedom…and with that unlimited rope he handily hung himself. Still, the director continued to explore some of the themes in Zardoz later in his career. Look for a mask similar to those of the Exterminators on Mordred (Robert Addie) in Boorman’s Excalibur.
Released to DVD in 2001, the commentary track from Boorman in that edition is invaluable. While he’s never verbose, the director manages to explain a number of the film’s more head-scratching moments. He also admits to his overzealous ambition ambition, and even advises viewers when they should fast forward. He never explains the red diapers, though. — Mike White
[tags]Zardoz, Sean Connery, Eternals, Exterminators, Deliverance, John Boorman, Brutals[/tags]
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I’ve never desired to see Sean Connery wearing a diaper, but I’ve always wanted to see a giant, floating head vomiting firearms from its mouth. Is ZARDOZ still the movie for me?