The Holy Mountain

by Alessandra Santos

Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo helped inaugurate the midnight movie phenomenon. Its success spawned The Holy Mountain , through interventions by John Lennon and Allen Klein. After a scandalous release and a 16-month midnight career, The Holy Mountain was relegated to the underground world of fan bootlegs for over thirty years until its limited restored release in 2007. This short study reveals how The Holy Mountain , a poetic, hilarious, and anarchist cult film by an international auteur, anchored in post-1968 critiques, is – at the same time – an archaeological capsule of the counterculture movement, a timely subversion of mystical tenets, and one of the most mysterious films in the history of world cinema.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

Published August 8, 2017

Reviews

[Muriel]

Such a dense, well-researched, and personable essay!!

My only problem reading it was that the author often refers to ideas from other texts without explaining them. I don't know what Brechtian means!!! If she was writing a paper for a class where she could expect the audience to have read all the same material it would be okay, but for a general audience who is interested in film theory but not that well versed in it, we need some clarification.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched The Holy Mountain and had to know more. This provides a pretty well rounded critique and contextualization, as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't know to say whether it's definitive or not but it provided me with a lot of understanding.

[Brian Shevory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so excited to find this series by Cultographies about cult movies that I had to restrain myself and had a hard time picking which book to buy… so many choices, but I had to select Alessandra Santos’s The Holy Mountain about one of my favorite movies of all time Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain. If you have never seen this movie, I’m not sure if there is a good way to describe it except that it is probably the most surreal movie I’ve ever seen and was created on considerable amounts of psychedelics. While there is a narrative about a quest for enlightenment and taking some of the worst people in the world and trying to transform them through a journey towards the holy mountain—a kind of human alchemical experiment—the movie is probably better known for its stunning visuals and outrageous stunts. The book does a good job providing an overview of cult movies and how Jodorowski helped to invent the midnight movie with his film El Topo (another great Acid Western quest movie). Jodorowski used this experience and notoriety he gained from El Topo to create a film even more absurd and surreal. However, he also had more backing from artists like Lennon. The book also goes into the funding of the film as well as how Jodorowski pulled together the creative team that helped him make this film. I really enjoyed reading more about one of my favorite films of all time, as well as the cultural and cinematic significance of this work of art. At times, I wish there was more analysis of some of the elements of the film, but to my knowledge, this is one of the only full length books that examines this film. While the book does spend some time exploring the nature of cult films and what constitutes a cult film, it was a helpful through line to understand the nature of this film. I can’t wait to read more of these books, and am hopeful that there will be a sale on some of them soon.