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Thursday, January 12, 2017

Zardoz (1974)

An Irish American science fiction written, produced and directed by John Boorman, starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling.
In a post-apocalyptic future, the elite are immortal and the rest of the population works on farms to supply the elite with food. This social system is enforced by exterminators who kill the farmers and a giant, floating head that orders them to do so. One of the exterminators stows away in the giant head and enters the area of the immortal elite. Although they originally want to kill him, he is permitted to live and learns the secret of their society. He then calls the other exterminators in to destroy their way of life and save them from immortality.
This is one of the films that I vowed never to review when I started this blog. I had tried to watch it before, but did not like it. The plot seemed to meander aimlessly, but did in fact have a point. I think that it brings up questions of authority and social systems that are followed by tradition, but have lost their meaning. The main character was interesting and did develop significantly. That is, if you can get past his absurd costume. The main villain developed some by a role reversal, but was absent for most of the duration. Everyone else was extras. The video was planned quite well. Their set designs were extravagant and colorful. There were also psychedelic altered states of consciousness sequences that entertained me. Some of these were done with careful placement of mirrors and looked really cool. The audio was pretty standard of the time, featuring classical music in the soundtrack. The dialogue was audible and mixed correctly with the music. Overall, this film was more fun to write about than to watch. I rate it o.k.

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