ZARDOZ

Written and Directed by John Boorman
Starring Sean Connery (Zed), Charlotte Rampling (Consuella), Sara Kestleman (May) and John Alderton (Friend). 1974.

Synopsis:

ZARDOZ takes place in the year 2293, where after an unnamed global apocalypse human beings have attained immortality through the use of a supercomputer they call the “tabernacle”. Settlements of immortals (called "Vortexes") are scattered throughout the world, and in an effort to ensure that the society achieves longevity the secret to immortality is purposely forgotten. This results in a society where it is IMPOSSIBLE to die--even if one kills themselves, they will be 'reborn' through a technological process and continue on with all of their memories intact. Outside of the immortal settlements, survivors of the global apocalypse live in enforced primitiveness. The immortals use these refugees to grow food, and also employ 'enforcers' to keep their numbers down. The 'enforcers' are given guns by the immortals to accomplish this task. Additionally, the immortals have created their own religion based upon the god 'Zardoz' who is embodied by a giant floating head. This head is used to travel the wastelands, gathering food and damaged immortals to take back to the main settlement.

Being immortal is not all it's cracked up to be. With unlimited time to do whatever they want, the immortals embrace a life of scientific study and gradually evolve. They do not need sex because sex is no longer needed to propagate life. Without sex, love slips away. Without love there is no emotion. Without emotion, life becomes unbearably boring. And this is what ultimately brings the immortal society down: boredom.

One of the immortals, bored and seeking death, embarks upon an experiment in genetic breeding. He creates a god, Zardoz, and a religion to go along with it. "Exterminators" work for Zardoz and do his will. Zardoz's will is to kill the savage people who populate the world. Amongst these Exterminators, he chooses the strongest and smartest and breeds them with each other with the goal of one thing: to make a race that will have the intelligence and power to destroy the immortal society. This is what ZARDOZ is about.

In the book CULT MOVIES 2, author Danny Peary comes down pretty hard on ZARDOZ. He calls it an out and out embarrassment, saying that it takes too long to explain itself and by the time it does you don't care anymore. He really can't come up with anything to like about it save for Charlotte Rampling, who is admittedly young and gorgeous, and was left with far too many questions as to what it all means. I won't refute the bulk of Peary's claims on the narrative construction, for he pretty much hits the nail on the head; ZARDOZ does indeed take too long to explain what's going on and as a result it can be something of a chore to get through until everything starts to make sense. I wouldn't go as far as to call it an embarrassment, but your level of enjoyment will depend on how tolerant you can be of its aggressively arty approach. At least, the first time around. Subsequent viewings are considerably easier to take.

ZARDOZ cost a million dollars to make and was Boorman's first film after DELIVERANCE. In his commentary on the DVD, Boorman concedes that a million dollars wasn't enough money to make the film, and this lack of money shows in the sets and costumes. He states in the commentary that to save money some of the background extras had their costumes painted on. I never noticed this, although once pointed out I was able to pick it out. Boorman also says that Burt Reynolds was originally set to star in the film, but had to drop out due to illness. I have to wonder if Reynolds was really ill or simply got spooked by the far-out nature of the plot. Certainly, Reynolds has nothing in his filmography that is anywhere close to ZARDOZ in tone or content. When he dropped out Connery was available and looking for something as far from James Bond as possible, so the timing was good.

The first couple of times I saw ZARDOZ I found it to be a baffling film experience, but baffling in a good way. I liked the jigsaw puzzle approach to telling the story, and how you had to work at trying to understand what was going on. I also reacted positively to the young Charlotte Rampling and the numerous naked women on display. But I freely admit I was never quite clear what was going on. Boorman drops us into the middle of the story with no explanation and lets us discover how things work along with Zed, and even this is a cheat since we ultimately discover that Zed knows considerably more about what is going on than he lets on. Even then there are things that are never clearly explained in the film, such as what functions the Zardoz head performed. Clearly, it brought guns to the enforcers and took bread back to the vortexes, but what about the bodies in plastic? Are they immortals who died and are being taken back to be reborn? Are they savages being brought back for experiments? Circumstantial evidence points to the bodies being immortals from other vortexes, but it is never clearly explained.

It wasn't until I read the novelization, which was written by Boorman and Bill Stair, that the story made complete sense. It tells the story in a straight linear fashion and this helps immeasurably in understanding everything that is going on. It also provides a crucial opening chapter that details Zed's life before he stows away in the head, and explains that Zed was not like the rest of his people. Rather, he had a superior intellect and "saw things that were not visible". It is made clear the Zed was one of the "chosen ones", or that he was one of the ones being selectively bred.

This is the film's biggest deliberate omission. In the film, it is not until the last third of the movie that we understand that Zed is something of a superman. The novelization makes this clear at the outset, and it can't help but change how we view the early scenes of Zed in the vortex. Instead of being a barbarian floundering about we see that he is instead systematically probing for a way around the defences of the vortex. Once he does he destroys the computer that controls everything, not by brute force but by using his superior intellect to deduce its secret location. Exterminators who had been waiting for the defences to come down instantly flood into the Vortex killing everything in sight.

Once having read it, I found watching ZARDOZ to be a much different experience. Much of the mystery is gone, true, but once you know exactly what is going on you can appreciate the film for what it is, and as a film I find much to like in it. I like the low rent set decorations. I like how the inflatable bags that adorn much of the vortex sigh and moan when touched. I like how Zed ultimately has to use his intellect to break the Tabernacle. I like how the immortals embrace the enforcers (and violent death) rather than eternal life and unending boredom. I like how the immortals view Zed's memories of his violent past as entertainment, which nicely points how removed they are from the world outside. It's also something of a statement against violence in the media.

The novelization is long out of print but can be found used. The DVD is still in print, I believe, and features the film in anamorphic widescreen, Dolby 3.0 surround (in English only), a reasonably lively commentary by John Boorman, radio spots, the theatrical trailer and a still gallery. It was originally released in 2000 and while shows its age is still an acceptable way to view the film.

More recently, the film was released on Blu-Ray by both Twilight Time and Arrow Video. Both editions share the same transfer and some of the bonus features, although each edition has features that are exclusive to it. From an image quality standpoint, the new transfer is amazing. It brings clarity where before there was only murkiness. True, it does point out some of the cheapness of the sets, but that is more than made up for with the ability to see everything else more clearly. Good stuff. I believe the Arrow edition is Region B only, and the Twilight Time (out of print as of this writing) was Region A only.