The Holy Mountain

Take a “trip” to The Holy Mountain with legendary director Alejandro Jodorowsky at a 50th anniversary screening of the wild cult classic, in a brand-new 4K restoration!

Writer/director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s hallucinatory flood of sacrilegious imagery and existential symbolism is a scandalous, surreal sojourn for enlightenment pitting illusion against truth. In The Holy Mountain, The Alchemist (Jodorowsky) assembles together an elite group of thieves – ‘industrialists and politicians’ – that represent the planets in the solar system. The master’s adept intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe. Following his meteoric rise in the wake of El Topo, Alejandro was given a budget of $1 million dollars (equivalent to $4 million today) and total artistic freedom for his follow up project. He wrote the screenplay, designed the sets and costumes, co-wrote the music, directed and acted in the film. He rejected using known or professional actors, and instead employed persons with actual backgrounds that matched their characters for many key roles. The Holy Mountain is a mythical, mystical masterpiece, a Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life – part spiritual quest, part science fiction, part social satire, and completely without comparison.  (Dir. by Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973, Mexico, in English, 114 mins., Not Rated)