The Holy Mountain

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a special kind of director, and The Holy Mountain, made in 1973, is a special kind of movie.

The film opens with a man dressed in black shaving two women in a rather psychedelically decorated room. The very next thing is a naked man lying in a pool of his own urine, covered by bees. This should tell the audience that, oh boy, are they in for something completely different. The plot is about the naked man, who is somewhat of a Jesus figure, and his midget companion who has no limbs. They travel and meet strange people who are pursuing a mysterious goal that involves reaching the titular Holy Mountain.

The Holy Mountain is a parade of symbolism, be it meaningful or just there to confuse everyone. Coupled with the dreamlike narrative and Jodorowsky's tendency to cram the scene full of whatever he wishes the result is quite bizarre. The film is also either a spiritual or an outright actual sequel to El Topo, another trademark Jodorowsky film made three years earlier.


 * BFG: Neptune within 3 minutes of meeting him.
 * Fantastic Religious Weirdness: If you can spot its presence, you've probably watched this an unhealthy number of times...or just once.
 * Faux Symbolism: Jesus has a plaster cast made of him while passed out and wakes up in a room full of hundreds of replicas and screams at the horror of... commercialized religion?
 * Gainax Ending: Or rather Gainax everything.
 * Groin Attack: Neptune castrates a guy. Then takes his testicles to be stored in a room with 1,000 OTHER PAIRS.
 * Male Frontal Nudity
 * Mind Screw
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: Massively Subverted, Jodorowsky took LSD during the filming of several scenes and the main cast was made to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms during another scene. Neptune was also on LSD during the castration scene and (according to the commentary track) almost actually cut off the other guy's testicles with a real pair of scissors.
 * Writer on Board: Jodorowsky did pretty much everything in the film, including starring as the Alchemist... Not as pretentious as it sounds and makes a lot of sense with this film: the fact that he's starring not the film itself.