Synopsis
The Holy Mountain (La montaña sagrada, 1973) is Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist drama, available to watch online on iFILM. It opens on a Christ-like figure: a bald thief found in the dirt, swarmed by amputees, in a city soaked in greed and death.
The thief soon meets the Alchemist, played by Jodorowsky himself in black and gold robes. The Alchemist gathers nine tycoons and power-brokers, each one standing in for a planet of the solar system, and offers them a bargain: shed their old lives and climb the Holy Mountain, where immortal sages supposedly hide and secretly run the world. There is no plot in the ordinary sense, just a procession of rituals, provocations and images, from golden excrement to toads dressed as conquistadors.
Jodorowsky directed, wrote, partly scored and starred; part of the money came from John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and the shoot reportedly ran on meditation and mushrooms. This is not a film for everyone. It sets out to shock, blaspheme and test your patience, and that is exactly why people have kept revisiting it for half a century as a cornerstone of counterculture cinema. Stream The Holy Mountain (1973) online on iFILM.
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