Well, Happy (early) April Fools Day!
I skipped out on last week’s Daredevil Hit Me With Your Best Shot (you have no idea how behind on television I am) and came back to a bit of an Easter egg. Or just an egg. This week’s entry of John Boorman’s notoriously kooky Zardoz is quite a hoot, both for its batshit vision of a future culture of sexual malcontents and for its psychedelic visuals.
Zardoz is like The Wizard of Oz if Dorothy dropped acid, took up macrame, and got a little kinky. Beyond that, I can’t tell you a damn thing it’s about. Sean Connery’s braided tangerine leather daddy goes through a vortex and descends upon a group of sexless scientists dressed like the ensemble of a slutty barn production of Pippin, and some sex stuff happens?
Oh, yeah and some crystals! “I see nothing inside – except my own perplexity.” SAME.
Jokes aside about the indecipherably strange plot, the visuals are pretty fun – all pastel technicolor and hall-of-mirrors refracted. Shot by Geoffrey Unsworth, the legend behind 2001: A Space Odyssey and Cabaret, the camera consistently builds intrigue where the script prefers confundity. Though the overall effect is lethargic, the film does spark visually when capturing its lead actress Charlotte Rampling.
filmmixtape 