Alejandro Jodorowski and his Holy Mountain

Alejandro Jodorowski released Fando y Lis in 1967 and had to duck a stoning on his way from the premier. In 1971, however, with the release of the singular Eastern Western, El Topo, Jodorowski created for himself a cult fanbase of celebrities and aristocrats who had only recently discovered that people in the East had religions not based around a single power. One said celebrity was John Lennon, who introduced Jodorowski to his manager, Allen Klein. Jodorowski and Klein agreed on a production deal for his next movie "Holy Mountain" that, unfortunately, left Jodorowski without the rights to the film. After its initial release, Klein supressed "Holy Mountain," and copies of it made its way through the black market, but it has been, for over 30 years, essentially illegal to see (the dispute was technically settled in 2004, although no reputable publisher has agreed to distribute it). When I saw Santa Sangre and El Topo years ago, I wanted nothing more than to see all his films, but was stopped short with with the sheer inaccessablitly of Holy Mountan and Tusk.

That said, through a fortuitous connection, a copy of Holy Mountain was recently bestowed upon me. Despite being a dubbed version of an Asian bootleg copy of the Laserdisc, complete with fading of all the naughty bits, my VCR felt honored having the tape inside it, and I was not disappointed. An almost incomprehensible quantity of religious and political symbolism take the place of any kind of real narrative, and any real understanding of the depth of the imagery will force a second, third, fourth viewing. The plot, in short, involves The Theif (strangely resembling Jesus) who, along with The Alchemist (played by Jodorowski himself), wrangles together a group of seven other western sleazes to execute a plan where they will scale Mexico's holy mountain, kill the nine immortals at the top and take their places as the rulers of the world. In order to make the trip, however, they must cleanse their bodies of their Western sleazdom and reach enlightenment. This is their journey, but the question still remains of what this has to do with a 15 minute blood-drenched re-enactment of the Spanish conquest of Mexico using costumed frogs. Everything, but the story is used as a catalyst to allow for these abstract sequences and, what the viewer comes away with at the end is something like the remebrance of a dream in which everything was so meaningful, so impactful, but so hard to explain.

If and when Holy Mountain does come out legitimately, it will be a special day. Alejandro Jodorowski, through his vision if not his narrative structuring, belongs in the Pantheon of master filmmakers and too few people have been exposed to his film. There are images, choreography, and a dedication to his films that nobody else has attained. Jodorowski once claimed,"I am to film what LSD is to the mind." Having experienced (maybe too much of) both, I cannot argue. The shared trait is meaning without context and the subject's willingness to accept what is presented can allow a spiritual, whole experience instead of one that's just "trippy."

Here is a link to an interview with Jodorowski published in Mean Magazine in 1999: http://www.jaybabcock.com/jodomean.html. Forgive the interviewer, he doesn't appear very well prepared....