Post by Luigi on May 6, 2024 15:03:29 GMT
I finally got around to watching this classic the other night!
An advanced society exists wherein they have invented a technology that essentially unlocks immortality, Its a crystal embedded in the centre of the forehead.
I found the whole thing a bit of a mind fuck in the most pleasurable of senses.
Sources for OP:
filmschoolrejects.com/35-things-we-learned-from-john-boormans-zardoz-commentary-64664cde1780/
www.inverse.com/entertainment/zardoz-50-year-anniversary
Ill try to gather the known references to this movie as ofcourse a recent tweet spurred me to finally find the time.
It begins with an absurd meta-fictional narrator (Niall Buggy) who calls himself both Zardoz and Arthur Frayn. He warns the audience that what we’re about to watch is only half-true, and mockingly implies we have no free will, saying, “Is God in show business too?” Then the movie gets going, and a giant stone head issues weapons to cult-like warriors, all wearing their diapers and bandoliers. These are basically murderous incels organized into a bizarre cult and tasked with keeping the downtrodden human population of the “Outlands” in line.
One of these Exterminators, Zed (Sean Connery), gets curious, hides in the stone head, shoots an in-universe version of Frayn, and finds himself in the Vortex, a place where privileged humans live immortal lives of leisure. As two Eternals — Consuella (Charlotte Rampling) and May (Sara Kestelman) — probe Zed’s mind, we learn the film’s most essential twist. The Eternals rely on the less privileged “Brutals” to supply them with food, the gun-obsessed cult of Zardoz is a social construct crafted by Frayn to keep the Brutals pliant, and Exterminators like Zed do their dirty work.
When Consuella says she’s “always voted against forced farming,” May reminds her, “You eat the bread.” Essentially, Zardoz plays with the idea that toxic, aggressive (and mostly male) behaviors are both despicable and weaponized by elites. In fact, in a Dune-esque development, we later learn that Frayn helped create Zed through a controlled breeding program, with the goal of making him some kind of liberator.
One of these Exterminators, Zed (Sean Connery), gets curious, hides in the stone head, shoots an in-universe version of Frayn, and finds himself in the Vortex, a place where privileged humans live immortal lives of leisure. As two Eternals — Consuella (Charlotte Rampling) and May (Sara Kestelman) — probe Zed’s mind, we learn the film’s most essential twist. The Eternals rely on the less privileged “Brutals” to supply them with food, the gun-obsessed cult of Zardoz is a social construct crafted by Frayn to keep the Brutals pliant, and Exterminators like Zed do their dirty work.
When Consuella says she’s “always voted against forced farming,” May reminds her, “You eat the bread.” Essentially, Zardoz plays with the idea that toxic, aggressive (and mostly male) behaviors are both despicable and weaponized by elites. In fact, in a Dune-esque development, we later learn that Frayn helped create Zed through a controlled breeding program, with the goal of making him some kind of liberator.
The film was inspired by The Wizard of Oz, obviously. “Hence the title, Zardoz. If you take the W I off the front you get to Zardoz.” Both films feature a hidden, frightening “wizard” using illusion to keep the populace in check.
Part of Boorman’s goal here was to explore the idea of immortality when it comes to sex and children. I’ll let him rephrase. “In a society where people live forever there’s clearly no reason or need for children, and therefore does sexuality disappear, does the sexual urge no longer function.”
As Zed is introduced to the Eternals’ culture, the second major twist of the film is unfurled; through too much technological and biological innovation, they can never die.
the Renegades are old folks condemned to eternal senility, the Eternals who have been rebuilt into younger bodies, the hapless Brutals struggling outside, the Exterminators (like Zed) whose job it is to keep the Brutal population in check and finally the Apathetics ‐ Eternals who’ve lost all interest in life.
An advanced society exists wherein they have invented a technology that essentially unlocks immortality, Its a crystal embedded in the centre of the forehead.
I found the whole thing a bit of a mind fuck in the most pleasurable of senses.
Sources for OP:
filmschoolrejects.com/35-things-we-learned-from-john-boormans-zardoz-commentary-64664cde1780/
www.inverse.com/entertainment/zardoz-50-year-anniversary
Ill try to gather the known references to this movie as ofcourse a recent tweet spurred me to finally find the time.