Student's Choice: The Holy Mountain

I need your help. 

The Guardian newspaper in London has had a number of series in which their writers or members of the public write an entry with titles like "My Favourite Film " or the more limiting "My Favourite Hitchcock Film ."  On Studio 360, there's a feature called "AHA Moments ," in which writers or artists talk about one particular work of art (a book, a movie, an album, a photograph, whatever) that had a major impact on their lives.  Then there's KCRW's Guest DJ Project, in which well-known people in the arts get to choose five pieces of music to share and discuss.

I'm looking for similar entries from YOU, my present and past students, about one particular cultural work that matters to you.  Try to sell the rest of us on it.  Email me something, and I'll begin posting the best entries in my sporadic fashion.  There's just one catch: it has to be 200 words or less.

I'm waiting.

To kick things off, we start with a post from former student Zachary Rex about Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 avant garde Spanish-language film La Montana Sagrada (The Holy Mountain).  This film is not for the easily offended, so sensitive viewers might want to avoid clicking on the video clip below.  You have been warned.  Now here's Zachary's entry:

The Holy Mountain (1973)

Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky

 

By Zachary Rex

I used to have no interest in “art films.” I held the same picture of them that many have: pretentious, weird for the sake of weird, really nothing more than a novelty.

Then I found The Holy Mountain.

Championed by John Lennon, adored by Marilyn Manson, The Holy Mountain has drawn quite a diverse group of admirers (and detractors).

It is an onslaught of disturbing, surreal imagery. Words cannot really do it justice. Take a look at the trailer and see for yourself:

The film follows a loose narrative of a Christ-like spiritual seeker, which is told through use of a plethora of symbols drawn from mysticism and the occult.

Jodorowsky plays with many different emotional tones here, from the dark and disturbing to the spiritually uplifting. There is even a stroke of absurd humor.

It is, if nothing else, two hours of eye-porn. It really shows what is possible visually through the medium of film. Even if “surrealism” isn’t your cup of tea, no visual artist can see The Holy Mountain without leaving inspired.

If you want to see a movie that is at once trippy, funny, terrifying, and enlightening, go and see this film.