John Boorman
Zardoz

Recently, I talked about Sean Connery, who during his lifetime was considered the best actor to portray the character of secret agent James Bond. Fortunately, however, in his career, he did not shy away from tackling various roles in numerous films. Here is a shining example which, even if it does not constitute the peak of filmmaking in itself (and I will explain why later), still deserves a revisit precisely because of the presence of the Scottish actor.

In "Zardoz," a film directed by John Boorman and released in 1974, the action takes place in 2293 (in a grim dystopian future that makes present-day 2021 seem a particularly bright year). On planet Earth, the average quality of life has significantly regressed such that the remaining inhabitants have been reduced to the rank of terrified Brutes who are killed, when necessary, by hordes of Exterminators, and are enslaved to cultivate crops in honor of a mysterious deity named Zardoz. This deity, taking the form of a gigantic stone head, appears descending from the sky (as if it were the Holy Trinity) and loudly recites the following slogan:

"The gun is good, the penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds and creates new life to poison the earth with the plague of man, as it was once, but the gun shoots death and purifies the Earth from the filth of the Brutes. Go forth... Kill!"

And, as if this infernal litany was not sufficient, ideal even for a potential political program, the giant head spews a flood of firearms which the adoring Exterminators gather to hunt the Brutes, delivering the harvests produced by enslaved labor to Zardoz. A desperate situation indeed, if it weren’t for the fact that among the Exterminators, there is a certain Zed (the unforgettable Sean Connery) who intends to get to the bottom of all this. With necessary cunning, he manages to enter what is considered the higher reality, namely Vortex. Here, due to advanced technology contained within the so-called Tabernacle, members of a superior race live confined in a dimension of immortality, immersed in an atmosphere of total Olympian ataraxia. This results in the absence of passions but also a total boredom stemming from immortality. Needless to say, Zed’s intrusion (which is the result of an unseen orchestration behind the scenes that will later be revealed...) into this closed universe called Vortex will produce a series of destabilizing chain reactions, heralding a healthy return to nature. As if to say that scientific and technological progress cannot and should not create imbalances with the natural rhythm, where there is life, there will inevitably be death.

As I hinted, the film has some limitations. Although it reaches high with cultured references ("The Wonderful World of Oz" by Baum, "The City and the Stars" by Clarke), the work suffers from slow passages (it is not very clear at first who Zed is), and certain characters like Arthur Frayn (the hidden director of the entire storyline, a kind of puppet master) appear redundant. The reference to the eternal theme of the relationship between man and nature always has current relevance (the film dates back to the seventies of the last century), here moreover declined in fantasy tones in harmony with the style of the British novelist Tolkien, very popular at that time.

However, in the face of a certain cumbersomeness of the plot, it should be granted that the overall soporific effect does not prevail precisely because of Sean Connery's performance. Yet another demonstration, on his part, of being not just a typical sex symbol for the female audience (see the hairy and muscular bare chest displayed in the film), but also of constituting a cinematic icon in himself. Indeed, seeing him here in the scant attire of a sort of dirty Mexican bandit with a great mustache, one might almost think he is incognito on a highly dangerous mission on behalf of Her Majesty the British Queen. In other words, with his sublime elegance and acting ability, Connery will remain sculpted in the collective imagination for centuries to come.