ZARDOZ—a teaser in the previews for this 1974 dystopian future fantasy fiasco went “Zardoz says, ‘I have seen the future and it doesn’t work.’ ” Critics and audiences left showings with the same pessimistic proclamation about the past, specifically the 105 interminable minutes they’d just been subjected to, those who’d remained flummoxed in their seats until it was over. Others had walked out halfway thru, in search of something more uplifting. Like Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia. 

The year 2293. Greed, pollution and lawlessness have turned the battered Earth into zones inhabited by separate and distinctly different classes. Intellectuals, the ‘Eternals’, live sheltered in ‘the Vortex’, protected by a force field, indolently whiling away their unending lives, sexless (yet sexily garbed, go figure), bored and pretty much insufferable. Outside the shield are the ‘Brutals’, serf-like masses eking out survival. Their numbers are kept in check by the gun-packing ‘Exterminators’, who worship ‘Zardoz’, a God being who appears as a giant head floating thru the sky (Gods live in the sky because…they just do). Zardoz dispenses firearms along with booming nuggets of wisdom like “The Gun is good!” and “The Penis is evil!”  When enthusiastic exterminator ‘Zed’ (Sean Connery) hitches a lift on the hovering head (hey, keep your crass thoughts to yourself) and pierces the Vortex, his raw, unrefined masculinity fascinates the foofy Eternals, and their elitist attitudes begin to fray. There’s a lot more, including the ‘Apathetics’  (I dated one, briefly; she stopped caring before I did), the ‘Renegades’, the ‘Crystal’ and the ‘Tabernacle’ (and less we forget, the costumes) but trying to explain it (sense-making not an option) won’t help the enjoyment quotient of its tail-chasing tangle, adroitly summed up by critic Will Thomas in Empire magazine as a “hodge-podge of literary allusions, highbrow porn, sci-fi staples, half-baked intellectualism and a real desire to do something revelatory.”  All that and less.

After nailing a big hit in Deliverance, thoughtful and stylistic director John Boorman abandoned plans to helm “The Lord Of The Rings” and created his own fantasy realm by writing this complex (i.e. indecipherable) opus, hoping to have Deliverance stud Burt Reynolds as star. Burt fell ill, and Sean, 43, stepped in, intrigued by Boorman’s ideas and his previous flicks (including Point Blank) and keen to distance himself further from 007, having returned to Bondage for a one-shot with Diamonds Are Forever. When assorted studios balked, Boorman produced it himself on a $1,570,000 budget, shooting on location in Ireland. The only other cast member with any audience familiarity was perpetual frowner fatale Charlotte Rampling, 27, playing an influential Eternal who first wants Zed dead, only to decide Zed in Bed might be worth a plot twist or four. In the story the Eternals have discovered immortality: by the time you get a fingernail grip on the plot you, too, will have aged noticeably, finding that ‘wiser’ isn’t more rewarding than ‘clueless’.

As a dyed-in-the-ejector seat fan of Connery from 5th grade on, I dutifully trooped in to see this when it came out.  At 19 either I was extra informed (okay, stoned) or was just like many who saw it, because (aside from ample nudity), I regarded it as what used to be called a “bummer”. Viewed anew decades later and having seen 59 of the 67 feature films he appeared in, including woofers like Meteor, Shalako, Wrong Is Right and Presidio (only profit points would have me to submit to Highlander II: The Quickening) it seems obvious, even to a dull-witted, soil-raking Brutal, that while The Terrorists is the most boring and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen the most disappointing, this star voyager’s prize winner for Most Aggressively Weird belongs to the dazing maze that is Zardoz.  Box office in the US was $5,500,000, 62nd place in 1974. *

Visionary, passionate and talented, Boorman gets A-grades for the results in most of his projects, and at least deserves credit for trying with this spacey odyssey. When his labor of—what, exactly?—was previewed for critics, he requested they view it twice, in order to decipher it, and included an explanatory booklet. ‘Depth’ can be so…deep.**

For all its ponderous pondering (amid the rapes & murders) there is one of its posits that fits with the apparent inclinations of our current collective ruling parasites: “The world was dying. We took all that was good and made an oasis here. We few: the rich, the powerful, the clever, cut ourselves off to guard the knowledge and treasures of civilization as the world plunged into a dark age. To do this, we had to harden our hearts against the suffering outside.”   Good time to drop the purple (or “take the red pill“) and slap on a Technicolor musical, like, oh, The Wi-ZARD of OZ, yes?

Generally singled out for praise is Geoffrey Unsworth’s cinematography, which would be best appreciated in Blu-ray. With Sara Kestelman (‘May’, freckled Eternal given a quick Zed course in the rudiments of impregnation), John Alderton (an Eternal named ‘Friend’, a giveaway that he isn’t one) and Niall “For f’s sake change your last name” Buggy (as foppy fakester Snore-doze himself).

* Sean self-beaned— “It was one of the best ideas I’d come across in ages…What gripped me especially was the direction the people in it were taking in their future existence, as opposed to spaceships and rockets and all that…I’m not a science-fiction buff. What does interest me is the possible development of society in centuries to come. ” Hey, if John Wayne could get smashed and saddle up as Genghis Khan, Clint Eastwood pretend to ‘sing’ in a musical and Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott risk romantic comedy, we can cut The Master of the Aston Martin DB4 slack for wearing thigh high leather boots, a red bandolier and a loincloth. With a ponytail.

** Classy action—John Boorman (closing in on 93 as I type) stands tall in my book with Deliverance, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, Beyond Rangoon, The General and The Tailor Of Panama. Others applaud Point Blank, Hell In The Pacific and Excalibur. The occasional wanker (Exorcist II:The Heretic and this valiant attempt at something meaningful) can be readily forgiven, and are a hoot to watch. He good-naturedly offered a few morsels about Zardoz: “When I see the film now I’m astonished at my hubris in making this extraordinary farrago.” “In 1973 it was very difficult to get Irish girls to bare their breasts.”

Not yet having had the good fortune to visit Ireland, venturing an opinion seems beyond the scope of this review.