It's easy to watch The Holy Mountain - Alejandro Jodorowsky's mind-bending surreal mystery - and give in to its apparent lack of narrative coherence and let the beautifully strange imagery wash over you. Few films carry so many striking, indecipherable images. Viewed, however, with a grasp of the alchemical processes of transformation and regeneration, and The Holy Mountain's triumph as a film which captures the essence of symbolic allegory becomes clearer. As weird and Midnight Movie-ish the sequence of events appears to be, there is a method to Jodorowsky's madness and a reaching towards enlightenment. Throw in some satirical swipes at contemporary materialism and scenes which are by turn brutal and beautiful, and the result is one of the most unusual movies of all time, even giving great cinematic surrealists like Luis Bunuel a run for their money.
