The Holy Mountain is a 1973 Mexican surrealist film directed, written, produced, co-scored, co-edited and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. The film is set in a corrupt greed-fuelled world were an alchemist leads a thief and several people representing negative characters to a holy mountain to achieve enlightenment. The Holy Mountain is a film about the meaning of life and how not to worry about everything and instead enjoy your existence and find your own path.
The film starts with two women being stripped naked and shaven by the alchemist who is symbolic of God in the film. this demonstrates that to achieve enlightenment you must strip away everything artificial to have enlightenment and meaning. The film then introduces the character of the thief who is symbolic of both Christ and the fool tarot card. The fool represents new begins as he starts his adventure. Having faith in the future as by the end of the film he is the only one with a happy ending. Being inexperienced at the begging of the film he is just a simple thief, which links to not knowing what to expect. The card also meaning believing in the universe which links to his spiritual journey. Within the film the disabled dwarf is the thief’s subconscious and his ego, shown as being battered and bruised but it is still a part of him that comforts him. naked children that are symbolic of Adam the first man remove a flower from his hand linking to a crucifixion wounds. They then string him up on a cross and pelt rocks at him to show how people used and exploited Jesus for themselves Jesus is angry at this and scares them away.
He then forms a bond with a disabled man which is the thief’s ego as he only has himself to rely on. The town they go into shows dead bodies and mass public executions as their bodies are skinned and paraded like crosses. This demonstrates the exploitation of human life by society as all this exploitation is horrible and meaningless as it demonstrates how people’s minds can be warped to do horrible things. As these executions happen tourists takes pictures of them showing that through society people don’t care about human life and wish to exploit everything through their own means is this world is vapid and meaningless. Birds them fly out of the bodies showing that from death comes beauty. This exploitation is further shown when one of the women and one of the soldiers has sex in public as the man joins them and the thief films it. This shows how people living at the bottom of society squander spirituality and instead live in the depths of depravity and exploitation, they then pay the thief showing how everything can be exploited. They then see a paly showing the conquest of Mexico which is shown with frogs on a city miniature dying. This demonstrates the exploitation of everything such as argic events at the hands of society through mindless exploitation. The character then comes across a Christ for sales shop with a nun and some romans as they make the thief carry the cross. This shows that the message of Christ has been forgotten and used by people for vapid reasons such as exploitation, control, and entertainment.
They get the thief drunk so he passes out as they make plaster cast of him as Jesus go sell. He then awakens in a room filled with Jesus cross sculptures. This demonstrates the exploitation of religion through man as society mass produces spirituality to give people a service level substitute for meaning. He awakens in a room filled with Jesus sculpturers as he shouts goes mad and destroys all the subcultures. This shows the film destroying the artificiality of people trying to find meaning through manufactured religion which was creates to control and make money. Religious prostitutes are then shown in the film with one of them receiving an old man’s eye, as these figures are the true spiritual believers of Christ and not these showmen. The prostitutes come across the thief carrying his sculpture like Christ carrying his cross. One of the prostitutes then cleans both his feet and the statues feet as a true follower of Jesus as they all end up following him like his disciples. They come across a scene of the soldiers and the common man in a slow dance, demonstrating how people can be turned by an idea and destroyed but they are just people. The thief finds an old drunk priest asleep in the crush who just uses God for his own means to by his way to heaven. These scene shows not to seek enlightenment and meaning though superficial meaningless means as it only leads to corruption and exploitation. The thief eats the statues face before sending it into the sky. This is done in remembrance of God and a seeking of true spirituality and a quest to find meaning in life. The people then gather around a hook from God which they get gold from in exchange for food. This shows people at the bottom of society being exploited by the people on top though vapid meaningless wealth.
The thief rides the hook to the top as he seeks riches and vapid personal gain. He then enters the rainbow room with the walls like a rainbow chowing that the thief is now on his journey towards enlightenment and meaning. The thief attacks the alchemist who beats him up as the alchemist is symbolic of God. The film shows you cannot win through primitive brute force and that you must achieve enlightenment though a destruction of yourself and everything as vapid experiences people use to find meaning. The assistant removes a squid from the thief’s neck symbolic of removing the original sin from a human to achieve enlightenment. The alchemist then offers the thief gold showing a frivolous meaning to satisfy a life without one which he accepts.
The alchemist ritualistically cleanses the thief of his sins. To create a more enlightened being, the thief then defecates into a cup which is turned into gold in a process that strips himself of his ego as he is then presented with gold. A line in the film is “you are excrement you can change yourself into gold” showing how anyone can become enlightened. The thief then sees himself in the mirror and disgusted by himself as someone who uses vapid meaninglessness to find meaning in life destroys the mirror and breaks down destroying himself. He then becomes a spiritual despite of the alchemist to find enlightenment and meaning, as he tries to break the stone by force, but the alchemist shows him that believe is what matters as he breaks it. Everything has a soul that his created though the tarot as the thief goes though the tarot cards, this demonstrates the thief’s enlightenment and his quest to find the meaning of life. He is given the gift of a stick symbolic of knowledge, a sword symbolic of daring, an ornament symbolic of wanting and a medallion symbolic of being silent as he given him his humanity. The thief becomes a spiritual guru and learns spiritual lessons such as one being is not like another to help him find the meaning of life, these lesions include you must think about yourself and what keeps you going not others. The films shows that people wish to pass on knowledge and that man wants secrets he can’t have ad that the most powerful people in the world are all thieves. The most powerful people on the planet also seek enlightenment and will join them on there quest with each character representing a negative characteristics and sin of mankind.
Fon of the planet Venus has the sin of vanity with him being the owners of a cosmetic and clothing factory. Everything in the factory is stupid and pointless with his father being deaf, dumb, and blind who consults his dead wife’s vagina, he also doesn’t do anything for the factory with him having several wives which are sectaries he promotes and has sex with them on working hours to have his children. The factory uses fake muscles to make them look better highlighting the theme of vanity as shown with the quote “we know that people want to be loved not for what they’re but for what they appear to be”. This vanity is further shown by people having fake faces and making corpses pretty and making them move thorough electricity. Elsa of the planet Mars has the sin of war being a manufacture of weapons. She is introduced in a very sexy sensual way making love to her lesbian lovers in an orgy roam as she wakes up her male sectaries. She then states that she then states that she manufactures and sells weapons, she has manufactured a drug that creates delusions of grandeur as they impale themselves on bayonets and turn people crazy, they make also make hippie ornated weapons for the youth and religious weapons.
The film then introduces Clen of Jupiter whose sin is society. He commercialises and commodities art to be a product as sown as people’s arses are painted on canvases. There is also an orgasm machine which shown how love has become robotic and mechanicalized as sex is a commodity. A woman stimulates the robot by using a metal penis to rub its electronic vagina as it is interested, and brown semen comes out and a robot baby is born. The character Cell of Satan has the sin of indoctrination and control of the youth particularly through war. At first, she is a clown entertaining them but then transforms into her real persona as she enters the toy factory. It turns out that she manufactures toys to indoctrinate the youth for war, she works for the government as the machine tells them what toys to make to condition children. The machine makes toys against the citizens to prepare them for war as they condition children to hate the enemy and run experiments. Berg of the planet Uranus is a meek character that lives in a grim shelter hovel with his ugly wife who is financial advisor to the president representing the sin of politics and money. He states to the president that to save the country’s economy they must eliminate 4 million citizens in the next five years which shows the callous disregard of human life if it satisfies the bottom line as they gas all the areas of society. However, he is angered by his gross wife as decoying the wedding cake saying he hates her.
Axon of Neptune is the chief of police whose sin is the corruption of power at the hands of authority leading to police brutality. He cuts off a boy’s testicles making an army of men who are drones with no thoughts or feelings of their own. They willingly give themselves to him like a god, as they are mindless drones who willingly beat up demonstrators in a surrealist scene covering them with blood acting as a criticism of authority and police brutality as they have killed them all. Lute of Pluto is an architect whose sin in society. His architecture is shown to be used for kids to play in with its unique look. However, is reality the architecture he makes is dull and lifeless like the loveless marriage he is in with his wife. He shows in a presentation to city planners that family architecture is a mistake, and that man doesn’t need a home but a shelter as coffins will be made just to sleep in as the one percent engage in debauchery.
They all come to see the alchemist as despite all their wealth and power they have no meaning in their lives as their lives are just as meaningless as the people they control. Despite their power and money, they are mortal and fear death. They want immortality and the meaning of life. He tells them there is a holy mountain on lotus island that nine immortal men live on that were once human and that their secret can be there’s if they become an enlightened collective. They centre around a room representing an all-seeing eye watching over mankind. They burn the money as they must forsake everything for enlightenment as they must get rid of the immaterial notion of money that ties humanity down in servitude stopping them from being enlightened. The thief steals come money relating to his old ways before he is forced to burn it.
They then destroy their self-image destroying their ego that only focus on the vein and vacuous as they destroy their concept of self-stripping everything away for enlightenment. They all end up going on their journey to the holy mountain. They end up going into a more natural world which is less spiritual looking stripping away the delusions of grandeur. They revie blessings from the holy man but Lute cannot contain his senses and vanity complaining about his smell. He is then beaten up by the alchemist and is then healed by the holy man as the alchemist says by the time, he is done you will enjoy his stink. The alchemist states that man cultivates the earth as white plants are creation. They all drink the liquid which they find gross stripping ego as the prostitute drinks the liquid with the monkey wanting to be enlightened to be with the thief. They all strip away their egos becoming like animals frocking in the fields. The characters spiritualty strip away their ego and self as they become as one a collective part of nature and become better by being one being. The dog that is there controls their senses as they all sense the same as they all form one and everything which is all connected spiritually. One of the members ends up killing himself by drowning as he couldn’t reach spirituality, the prostitute and the chimp follow the thief as the film hints at the idea that probably the meaning of life is the power of love. They all engage in the ceremony of death as they all symbolically become dead surrendering everything to death, they give up everything and surrender their body through death in a mock burial as they are reborn as a universal body for God as they are part of the earth like Adam, they are children formed form the clay.
They are now one group. The alchemist scolds the thief as he imitates Christ by trying to perform mir lases as the alchemist shows him that this will lead to fighting and death linking into the idea that people can use religion for corrupt means. The film sates that from a concentration of percussion anything can be achieved. The thief however still has his subconscious and ego with him in the form of the disabled dwarf that they cast out and force him to throw into the ocean to destroy his ego. They then visit the pantheon bar were all the people who have given up on immortality for debauchery and the temptations of sin. The people there believe that thyme will find the meaning of life though trivial means such as poetry, drugs and acts of physical prowess, as they leave the bar, they are scolded for not joining in the pleasure. During there assent up the mountain Elsa must overcome her sexual desires to ascend Elsa is shown to be terrified of success as she must give herself to the world. Fon’s vanity then comes back to him as he gets frost bite on s hand and his fingers are amputated. They then ascend the mountain where they all have a personal symbolic vison representing their worst fears and obsessions. Elsa is shown cutting meat off a horse and eating it, one is showered in money, Axon ends up like animal in anger, Cell engages in sex with two cows, one of the men gets castrated and dies, one of the men has tarantulas over them, one of them has breast milk squirted at them form an old man with leopard heads for breasts.
They find the immortals as the alchemist leaves them saying they don’t need him anymore. The thief then goes to the alchemist as he makes him symbolically kill him in the form of a lamb, he is a sacrificial lamb like Jesus sacrificing himself for his apprentice. The alchemist reunites the thief with the prostitute and the chimp as they go of together as they don’t need immortality, they don’t need the meaning of life to be happy. The rest of the group confront the immortals to find a group of dummies and the alchemist having seemingly tricked them. The alchemist says to embrace reality and life breaking the fourth wall saying that these people are images and not prisoners who must break the illusions, saying “goodbye to the holy mountain real life awaits us”. When the alchemist breaks the fourth wall the alchemist states to live in the moment deconstructing eventing as this vison quest is inferior to the real world. The alchemist ultimately sates to live in the moment stating that thing will get better. The Holy Mountain ultimately states that you as a person are living your life now, you don’t need everything in the world, you don’t need the meaning of life to be happy you can create your own meaning and that’s just fine.
The Holy Mountain is a film about how there is no meaning to live and that is ok. It sates to worry about etching things will get better and you don’t need to worry about superficial things that don’t matter. It states that truly the meaning of life if there is only is to simply enjoy your existence and follow your own path.
