t is the year 2293, and roving bands called the Exterminators cut down the population of Brutals wandering the wasteland that most of the world has become. The Exterminators ply their craft at the bidding of their god, Zardoz, who appears to them in the form of a huge flying stone head.
Zed (Connery), an Exterminator, stows away in the head of Zardoz as it flies to a place known as the Vortex, where Zed finds an enclave of immortal aesthetes called the Eternals living under the auspices of an artificial intelligence called the Tabernacle. Zed is studied by an Eternal, May (Kestelman), to the dismay of Consuella (Rampling), who thinks Zed will contaminate the Eternal community--an idea that appeals to a Vortex troublemaker known as Friend (Alderton).
Caught within the machinations of May, Consuella and Friend, Zed learns about the twisted society the Vortex has become over centuries of isolation. Eternals known as Apathetics, broken by centuries of boredom, now stand in catatonic states of ennui. Others, called Renegades, have been aged to decrepitude as punishment for not falling in with the Vortex's suffocating notions of propriety.
Zed becomes a tool of dissent within the Vortex, realizing Consuella's fear of contamination. But whose tool of dissent is he? What is his own agenda? And what exactly does the mysterious Arthur Frayn (Buggy), a man Zed may or may not have killed, have to do with Zed's coming to the Vortex in the first place?
Born between 2001 and Star Wars
Zardoz is a much-loved and much-hated film. That it's an SF film made between 2001 and Star Wars by a major director gives it status as a classic, as does its passionate cult following. Zardoz is effective, infuriating and hilarious. It's most successful as satire, but Boorman covers so much--from the politics of entitlement to the nature of human evolution--that he undermines his vision. Boorman addresses many of the thematic issues Gene Wolfe addresses in Book of the New Sun. Wolfe had four dense volumes to work within; Boorman 105 minutes.
Boorman and his cinematographer, Geoffrey Unsworth, realize a stunning SF tableau. The stone head of Zardoz flying over barren landscapes is as arresting as anything painted by Magritte. The performances, especially given the subject matter, are all great. And the weird community of the Vortex recalls the best Kafka-like elements of The Prisoner.
Yet the plot is so convoluted, Boorman's satire at times has no ground upon which to stand. Great mysteries are thrown away in a line or two. Character motivations seem to change in a heartbeat. Much of Zardoz is hopelessly dated in a mainstreamed hippie aesthetic; scenes in which Zed's sweat and mojo save the day only could have been realized in the '70s. For all its profound and aggravating shortcomings, Zardoz is a unique SF experience. No filmmaker before or since has attempted anything like Zardoz, and when the film works, it work beautifully. Its absurdity is forgivable; it's an absurdist work. One of the most famous lines in the film is "It was all a joke." Consider it fair warning the joke is not to all tastes.
Zardoz makes me crazy; its attempted meditation on humanity is as valid as anything articulated in written SF, yet it's hamstrung by Boorman's lack of control over the material and the unfortunate "grooviness" of the era in which it was made. Still, Zardoz is a reminder of the thematic scope of which SF film is capable, and as such is worth at least one or two serious viewings, especially if you like to be challenged.
