The Holy Mountain

In a corrupt, greed-fueled world, a powerful alchemist leads a messianic character and seven materialistic figures to the Holy Mountain, where they hope to achieve enlightenment.

Austin Lugo: before we get started this week. Next week we're going to be watching, I know where I'm going. I wanted to pick a romantic type of film since it is the season, since Valentine's Day is just around the corner. I'm pretty excited about this film. I don't think I've seen any of Powell's films before. Have

Andrew Harp: you, Andrew?

I haven't seen any other movies, but Michael Powell did direct a movie by himself called Peeping Tom, which is a very, very good like proto horror slasher movie. It's a very, very, very good, and they've both have directed other movies that. Are considered classics, thread, shoes, black, uh, narcissist, a matter of life and death balloon, all that

Austin Lugo: shit according to Letterboxed.

I have seen one of his films before, but I'm not sure which one. I think I've seen Black Narcissist before. I'm like 80% sure. I've seen this film before, but I have seen something. The way. I'm excited, I've

Andrew Harp: You can, you can fade it, by the way. Yeah.

Austin Lugo: I always forget how to do that. Wait, here, let me do this Fade.

Watched. Okay. I've seen 49th Parallel. Don't know what this movie's about. Oh, I remember this movie. Very good. I'm excited. The red shoes has long been on my list, but I've just never gone around to it, so now it'll be a good excuse to watch in preparation for this. Bottom pump. Let's go. All right, but this week we're talking about the Holy Mountain.

A movie that you love. I know. So why, why did you pick this movie, Andrew?

Andrew Harp: Uh, there's no other movie like it, that's for sure. Hodorowski movie. You've never seen a Hodorowski movie before. And I think in Holy Mountain everybody should see it. Everyone should watch it. You know, Hodorowski. Unbelievable guy.

Unbelievable director. It's just kind of like a great ideal seventies psychedelic experience.

Austin Lugo: I came into this movie completely blind. I had no idea what this movie was about. For some reason I thought it was gonna be a horror film. Maybe it's just from the posters. There's some horrific stuff in it.

There's some very gross and disturbing moments in this film. I had described this film as very disturb. and dare I say nauseating at times it's hell yeah. An experience like no other, and a challenging film to talk about cuz there's not much of a plot. I mean there kind of is, but it's. It's a bit all

Andrew Harp: over the place.

Yeah, it kind of is, which is okay for me because that's just kind of like the journey of the movie, but I don't think I would have the movie any other way. I will say there's a movie that is similar to this movie. For some reason, this movie and, and another movie I feel like are kind of connected because I think they're both kind of similar and they're kind of grandiosity.

Ken Wrestles The Devils, which is also a 1970s movie. I think that movie is also equally incredible from a visual standpoint, but there's a little bit more to like the writing and the story to it, I guess. I would say that movie is a little bit better than Holy Mountain, but Holy Mountain is also amazing.

Austin Lugo: This film reminded me a lot of the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie and some of his work also has a bit of tempo, PPO vibes. This film's funnier than I thought it would be. Again, I didn't know what this film. Yeah, it's quite funny. Would be about but almost mon python level of humor. Yeah. , just some like very.

Disturbing. Yes. Simultaneously silly moments in this film.

Andrew Harp: There's so many great iconic en images too. I think it's a great looking movie. I think there are so many crazy things. I think the Comedy two is kind of apparent with like in the middle of the movie where the movie kind of stops and introduces all of the characters, the factory owner, rich people who wanna be, who wanna live forever.

There's a lot of funny stuff those kind of feel like, like, yeah, like Monty Python skits

Austin Lugo: almost. So our film opens up on. Two women being shaved, I guess.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. The, the, the opening intro is iconic. It doesn't really have anything to do with the movie, but like, it doesn't really matter. It's just like a really great, like image.

Yeah. This

Austin Lugo: film is full of extremely vivid images. It feels almost like. Subliminal in the images, like on their own. They don't have a whole lot of meaning, but the conglomeration of these different images just feels like this very strange experience and this opening image, which I was reading some article, I don't remember where.

And supposedly those two women in the beginning of the film are actors. He just found these two women who wanted to have a spiritual experience, which tracks it's a very spiritual film, I guess you could describe it as

Andrew Harp: Yeah, and it's clear, you know, everybody's like taking l s D and stuff, you know, it's, it's a very A L S D late movie.

I'm sure making the movie was similar to what you see in the movie. It's pretty out there. It's pretty far out , but yeah, like that sounds about right and like I love like the black, like the tall black hat and stuff like that. Like that shit is like very, you know, iconic. There's so many iconic images.

Austin Lugo: So post hair cutting scene, we open on this Jesus Christlike

Andrew Harp: figure.

Yeah, he's basically almost like the main character kind of. Yeah. For the most

Austin Lugo: part. Kinda like our protagonist, he's the guy we fall around for the first at least 30 minutes. Like it's kind of just him wandering around. in this weird, how would you describe this world? Antrum, .

Andrew Harp: It's almost like, uh, the, the essence of a South American country, I guess.

Cuz he kind of like, yeah, he, like, he goes on a little journey and he kind of like, meets all kinds of different, like people and places and things that kind of point out like how fucked up, I guess, things were at the time, like right away. Like you see like that image of like that the, the truck going by with like all the bodies like that are filled.

With it and there are like, uh, like guys walking around with like helmets and gas masks and guns, and those people probably symbolize. The fascist state or whatever, war dictators, whatever. And, uh, some of this stuff is a little on the nose. It, it's a cool image, like when a person gets shot and they're laying there and like birds fly out, there's something a little, I don't know, , I guess maybe he was, he was the first to do it.

But I imagine like, uh, seeing that like used again and again as a joke, like in an comedy show or something like that, like a person getting shot or some of those images are a little on the nose. I like the one with, uh, the guys in gas mask carrying like the dogs who are like crucified and skinned. Those look like

Austin Lugo: real dogs.

They were, apparently, they were from a restaurant and they were just like, they were gonna serve them as food. So before they That's sick. Yeah. ,

Andrew Harp: there's no other movie. I haven't seen any other movie that uses animals. Like this movie, there's no other movie. The way that they use animals in this movie is insane.

It's really like, honestly, like for me, it's like one of the big reasons to watch the movie because it's insane, is just like the use of animals.

Austin Lugo: It's so disturbing in so many different ways, and the first 30 minutes I think is perhaps the most disturbing part of the film. I mean, so many. Disgusting moments.

Bloodshed and, and murder. And of course the animal carcasses on crosses and all these different crucifixes you have, the toads and lizards,

Andrew Harp: chameleonlike Circus or something. That shit I totally forgot about that shit is so crazy. . It's so fun. .

Austin Lugo: I love the like group of tourists that's like wandering around, like buying these commercialized.

Andrew Harp: Christ-like figures they're having sex with, like military, , the military people. Yeah. It

Austin Lugo: reminded me a bit of playtime when that group of tourists is wandering around. I think it's, they have this, music's very similar kind of, has that sort of circusy Italian.

Andrew Harp: I always forget that Don Cherry worked on the music.

Like I saw as, uh, name in the beginning. I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot that Don Cherry worked on it. You can kind of hear him here and there in the uh, sound. Love Don Cherry. So

Austin Lugo: insane. So many gross images of just sloppy. I don't even know how to describe. .

Andrew Harp: A lot of nudity in the movie

Austin Lugo: too. There's a lot of nudity and sexual images, but not sexual in a fun way.

I wouldn't

Andrew Harp: say it's like super sexualized movie. I mean, there is like sex. There's a lot of sex.

Austin Lugo: I mean, it doesn't feel sexy. I'm not saying it's a sexy movie, but there is a lot of. Sexual images, a lot of phallic images, a lot of penises, vaginas

Andrew Harp: and boobs. Yeah, it rocks. . Yep. I love the part where he is like, he meets up with like those, uh, people that are dressed up like uh, Roman guards or whatever.

And they get him drunk. It's kind of funny, but you know, it's like, whoa, I'm guessing he's like husky's trying to make like a comment about like the commodification and that even like the image of Jesus being crucified as a commodified image, if you truly believe in it, you know, it's like an insane thing that happened.

And so like the commodification of like Jesus being crucified is like kind of a weird thing. Like while he is drunk, they like pour a bunch of like slop onto him and then they like make a mold of him so they can make these big paper mache Jesus's. That part's pretty.

Austin Lugo: It's absolutely wild. And then he goes around carrying a paper mache version of himself, wondering through the streets, meeting all of these wacky people.

He

Andrew Harp: meets all those prostitutes. They're who are like all wearing the same thing. Yeah. There's a lot of details in the movie. There's a lot of like visual details that are kind of hard to miss. Like with the prostitutes, you know, there's one who I guess, falls in love with him, I guess The thief as is he's, he's named in the credits and she has like a monkey.

Yes. There's

Austin Lugo: a monkey in the film who's just.

Andrew Harp: Chilling. Yeah. It's like her friend that she has with her. There's no explanation. There's not really a lot of dialogue in the movie that explains anything. You just kind of have to go on the ride. Like if you go in the movie like thinking, what's this mean?

What's this? What's going on there? Da, da, da. Why aren't they like, you know, you're gonna have like a really, really bad time. Yeah. It's

Austin Lugo: definitely more of an experience that overwhelms you and you kind of just have to become one with the film. You can't try. You just kind

Andrew Harp: of have to like approach it like a surreal painting or something like that.

Like there's surreal paintings. This is a surreal film. You wouldn't look at a surreal painting and be like, oh, why? Why is this like this? You know? Like, this doesn't make any sense. You know? Like, no, you just kind of have to approach it like that. So

Austin Lugo: our Jesus character is wondering around. Running into all of these wacky characters and gross situations until at one point he lifts himself up into some sort of Bell Tower Church tower sort of thing.

Oh, by

Andrew Harp: the way, I like when he eats the face of his, uh, statue. Do you remember that part? Express? I sure do. He does it for real, whatever, like it's like a big tower and like he really does go up there.

Austin Lugo: Oh yeah. It's very impressive. He climbs up some giant S tower and. Breaks through some, I don't know, hole in the wall or whatever in which he meets.

I don't know. Does the guy have a name? The pastor guy, the leader, according

Andrew Harp: to the credits. He's The Alchemist.

Austin Lugo: The Alchemist. That's right. Because he is discovered turn shit into gold. Yeah. Well, yes, . He has discovered how to turn shed Nicole. Quite literally. There's a quite long scene where. We watch them turn shit in the gold.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. Rocks. . I love, I love the tower scenes cuz all the sets and brooms that they go in look amazing. Like that first room he goes in where he's like walking really slowly in like the big rainbow room is very amazing. It looks

Austin Lugo: crazy. He said, designs are so much fun. Have a nice like kung fu little scene, you know, just throwing them across the floor.

Andrew Harp: That's Hodorowski, by the way. The Alchemist, yeah, he's in a lot of his movies. He acts in a lot of his movies, but yeah, they have a little scene and yeah, he puts 'em in the thing to make him sweat and I guess he needs the sweat to make the shit into gold is, once again, it's not really explained, but whatever you get the.

Austin Lugo: Very cool looking machine. A lot of really cool looking machines, very cool set designs, very cool. Futuristic seventies, like AI type machines that just look absolutely wild

Andrew Harp: animals everywhere in these scenes too, like there's like a baby hippo at one point. There's like a pelican, a camel, like just like random

Austin Lugo: animals.

They're all over the place and he goes through a series of rituals. and I love that one room, the tarot card room with all of the paintings on the walls, and there's that image where they're above our two characters and it starts to spin and it goes faster and faster. Faster. It looks almost like a board game almost.

I don't know. It's very strange. Like, it's like one of those little like spinning card things they kinda look into from the side. You know, like those old like film kind of. It looks like that almost. It's very strange scene. I love the

Andrew Harp: paintings. The rooms are so cool. It must have taken a lot of work to put these together, even though there are not a lot of like things in it.

Yeah, the set design

Austin Lugo: is insane. .

Andrew Harp: Yeah. It's so good. I love it. And once again, you know, it's like, you know, he's like an alchemist or something, like a religious leader. It's hard to say, but he's cool. And

Austin Lugo: that's when we get introduced to our eight other disciples, I guess you could call them, which this is my favorite part of the film.

It's basically just a series.

Andrew Harp: I totally forgot about it really? . I kind of forgot about this part of the movie and I was like, oh, right, I forgot this part of the movie. Yeah. Where we have all this stuff. I love

Austin Lugo: this part. It's. A bit like a heist film in which we get to introduce to each character. Each character has a specific set of skills that they bring to the table.

They're also all terrible. They're all terrible human beings. They're all the worst, like just awful human beings. Each one just worse

Andrew Harp: than the last. I like the first guy who has all of his like, uh, wives, , that guy's awesome. He has like the huge line of wives and he has like his, his like father who has like his like wife to determine what business decision to make.

He's like, well, no, he's not even blind. He's deafblind and he can't talk. And dumb deafblind and dumb . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and like touch his wife to determine in like business decisions. But his wife is like a, a doll, a mannequin, a manne king blue. Oh, okay. And they all like own for the, some of them don't, but a lot of them like own factories and stuff that make shit

Yeah. They're

Austin Lugo: all like high up in whatever planet they're in. They're either owners of a factory or one of them's the head of, uh, the finances for some dictatorship, but all absurdly insane. I. One of my favorites is the woman who produces weapons for children.

Andrew Harp: Yeah, that one's good. . I believe that woman in particular is either the wife or like daughter of Hodorowski.

Really? Yeah. Valerie Hodorowski, huh?

Austin Lugo: Yeah. Her whole thing is that they study the ongoing wars of the world. And then produce weapons in which to sell to children, so then they can convince children to participate in the military. And so the world that's designed there, and I, I love the different worlds that are designed, you know, not just the set designs, but all of the different thought that's put into the people.

they're involved in these worlds and in this world you'll notice that there's no one between the ages of like 20 and 40 because I guess I assume that they're all off at war or have all been killed. So it's all either young children or like super old people. Very strange, very

Andrew Harp: surreal. That's a good point.

And yeah, and like yeah, they have like the kids that are like hooked up to like the things in their heads and stuff, and like they have like bows and arrow. They're like, we also have a comic book campaign for . I love that To like hate the enemy. It's very, very good. I like the art one where he makes art , where it's like, they're like painting like, like the asses of people and they sit down on it.

Yes. . Or like the weird robot that gives birth to like the baby robot. I just kind of like the idea of like the art factory, like it's . They're all good in their

Austin Lugo: own way. Is there a factory? Is that the architect guy or is the architect guy a different guy? I think the architect guy. He's a different guy, but I'll remember, the only thing I remember about the architect is that opening scene in his really cool house and those children dressed up as mice.

Who,

Andrew Harp: oh, architect guy is a different guy,

Austin Lugo: right? What does he do? Like I only remember that opening part of that. Is there more to that scene after that?

Andrew Harp: He's the guy who remember, he goes to that dinner with all those people. And he has like, people will live, like live in coffins and stuff, like running water, no feet.

Yes,

Austin Lugo: that's right. He designs the coffins. .

Andrew Harp: That one is very, very funny too, where he's like presenting like in a school gymnasium, like uh, the coffins that people will live in. The outfits in the movie two are amazing. Like the looks of all these people look great. They look so weird and crazy. The funniest one is like the chief of police guy, the guy who looks like a Mad Max villain is like, yours completes my collection of 1000 testicles

Austin Lugo: It's just a, a room full of testicles that jars and jars of testicles and

Andrew Harp: then the like, they go and like they kill a bunch of people on a protest. That's another part of the movie where once again, I'm like, okay, like, yeah, I get it. It's like, yeah, it's,

Austin Lugo: it's a bit on the

Andrew Harp: nose. They like shoot people in like things and items fly out of them and they pull stuff out of them and Yeah, I get it.

And they're

Austin Lugo: all from a, a different planet. One of the nine planets, they're each, I don't know, supposed to be representative of some shit. I don't know. I'm sure there's some like astrology shit going

Andrew Harp: on. Yeah, there's like an astrology shit going on. I don't really know. I don't know if it's like literally they're literally from another planet who, who cares?

Austin Lugo: doesn't

Andrew Harp: matter. I guess it makes sense. Like it doesn't make sense, but it does make sense. Yes, it does make sense to like the, the goal of the movie. So

Austin Lugo: we meet the nine different members of this great heist, and halfway through the film we're finally giving. Inciting incident, which is through all religions and ideas.

There's this idea of a Holy mountain where nine individuals are basically gods who rule the world, and he's collected these nine individuals because he believes that they are going to conquer the mountain and rule the world,

Andrew Harp: so to speak. They want immortality, and so yeah, he takes him on a bit of a journey, I guess.

Austin Lugo: He sure does. Forces them to get rid of all of their money. Throwing just piles and piles of money into a fire. They have to throw mannequins of themselves

Andrew Harp: into the fire. I love that set too. I love how like it looks like an eye. Yeah,

Austin Lugo: it's a good looking set. And then he does the whole like projector heist, kind of telling him the plan and how they're gonna do it and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then, They go on their adventure. They're Lord of the Rings like adventure. They look like they're in like Greenland or some shit. Yeah, they're

Andrew Harp: like in the mounds. I'm, I'm guessing they're still in South America. It looks like they're just kind of like in the, uh, mountainy areas. They're really out there though.

I mean, it really does look like that to me. You're right, it is very lord of the Rings like where they just, uh, they're like in robes and things and the Alchemist is trying to condition these people to like basically, yeah. Give up everything, give up their self and just kind of give up who they were before so that then they then can become immortal elders, cuz it's not gonna happen as who they are right now.

And I don't know, when you watch these parts of the movie, you know the actors, you know they're really doing it. They get naked, they run around, they're out there in the wilderness. Clearly they probably did drugs. ? Yes,

Austin Lugo: I would say there's a very large possibility. Most of the people were on drugs during the making of this film.

I'm sure it's an experience that could only be improved by L S D or any psychedelic drug ayahuasca

Andrew Harp: perhaps. I'm pretty sure as well. Yeah. But this part of the movie is, uh, it's nice, I guess I like when the monkey shows up and he is wearing a shirt and jacket. He's got drip. Because while the elders are going, uh, the lady, one of the prostitutes who likes the thief, she starts going up the mountain as well with her monkey friend.

So that's fun to watch too, cuz you get to see the monkey just doing his thing. Yeah, he's chill as fuck. I'd be really scared to be near the monkey. I really would not want to be near a monkey. No, that monkey would kill you. He would, he would break your neck. He definitely could. He seems chill, but like, who knows?

Like what sets off a monkey, you know it. I don't know. Yeah, we

Austin Lugo: skeptical when it comes to monkeys, that's scary to me. No, I feel that. So they go through a, a series of trials and tribulations, breaking people's bones, drinking. Green goo.

Andrew Harp: The guy has to throw his little friend off the uh, boat. It's his emotions

Austin Lugo: or something like

Andrew Harp: that.

It's like an illusion. It's like just something that's holding him back, I guess, from actualization, I guess.

Austin Lugo: Something about that. Spend some time on a boat. And, you know, a deep ocean. They wander around, they, uh, meet the leprechaun guy. I don't know how else to describe

Andrew Harp: him. , wait, are you talking about the leader hosing guy?

Yeah, he's like a German leader. Hoing guy. Yeah, . This part of the movie's funny too, basically like a, um, hotel and it's just like, everybody's like partying and stuff. Like yeah, these are people that wanted to go up the Holy Mountain, but they decided. Staying here would just be better. And you

Austin Lugo: meet a, a bunch of of wacky figures.

The poet who's just bad at being a poet, the guy who eats all that candy, but I guess it's supposed to be like L S D and, and different drugs of that sort.

Andrew Harp: That part's kind of interesting. The guy who's like, yeah, the Holy Mountain is right here, like in drugs. I'm assuming that's horo. Who even though like he loves probably drugs and psychedelics, he's probably like, it's not the Holy Mountain though.

Like he probably thinks that L S D in drugs can be used as a tool. But I guess he's trying to say that psychedelics can lead you down a certain path or the down the right path, but it's not necessarily the Holy Mountain. It's not the goal, I guess. Yeah,

Austin Lugo: he's self-aware enough to recognize that while the psychedelics may be a tool on which to guide the way to the path of the Holy Mountain, it's not the Holy Mountain themselves and people who think that.

These drugs are, the Holy Mountain themselves are no less foolish than any of the other people who live in this kind of fantasy, self-indulgent world, right? Cuz everyone in this kind of world that they meet is like consumed by their own self-indulgence. Like they're just extremely full of themselves and care only about.

Kind of that momentary pleasure, right? They're not looking for anything beyond that. Like they thought they wanted any mortality, but then they get there and they're like, oh, we can just,

Andrew Harp: well, it's really hard to go up the mountain, so . Yeah, it's so, they're like, yeah, fuck that. I like the guy who travels through it horizontally.

Austin Lugo: That's my favorite guy. Favorite person in this movie, .

Andrew Harp: He's awesome.

Austin Lugo: Conquered the mountain mountain

Andrew Harp: horizontally. He's like a strong guy in like, in like seventies. That guy's probably very strong like in 1973. You know what I mean? Like whoa. That guy is like, he has huge muscles. So yeah. And yeah, he's like, I conquered it horizontally.

Austin Lugo: That's so funny. He can travel through matter, but only in a horizontal manner. Yeah. ,

Andrew Harp: that stuff is funny. Yeah, I, once again, I kind of forgot how funny the movie. I like later on too, who basically like, uh, I don't know which one, but one of them that like basically has sex with the mountain. They're like climbing.

And that part was kind of funny too. It's like, oh, okay, all right.

Austin Lugo: We'll have sexuality oozing from this film. Man. A woman just has sex with the mountain A at some point to give herself up to nature to become one with

Andrew Harp: the world. I think one of the best parts too is when they go through the hardest part in the part of the mountain where they like all kind of experience, I guess like some.

Horrifying. Fear or vision. Their greatest fear. Yeah, something like that. I love that part of the movie. It's great. It's some

Austin Lugo: pretty disturbing images. You got like the, the Tree of chickens, dead chicken carcasses that build up a tree. You got the guy who has real spiders like tarantulas or some shit. I don't like that.

I don't like that at all. That was very disturbing. I mean, they're real fucking spiders that they just good for this actor who was willing to. Just dozens of spiders cuz they're, yeah, they're definitely real and they're definitely crawling all over this man. And it's,

Andrew Harp: they have that one where like they have the dogs fighting.

They're really fighting .

Austin Lugo: That's a real fucking dog fight. It, it's

Andrew Harp: once again, like this is a movie Can't be made today. It's so audacious. That it has to be seen by everyone. And I know people will probably, they'll see the dog fighting and they'll be like, no, like, I have to stop. And that, that's understandable.

Pretty disturbing. There's that scene where like the, where the, like the cows and stuff like , that's also like, it's not disturbing, it's just kind of like fucked up. Yeah. Like I, I, I understand like maybe people being uncomfortable with the, an especially the animal stuff in it. It's pretty. It can be pretty tough, but it was 1973 and I think people were built different back then.

I think they were, things were a little bit different. People didn't know any better. And the fact is that the movie has been made. It exists and that's just how it is, you know, so,

Austin Lugo: so these people, they go about, they're conquering their fears in their own. Weird, surreal, disturbing

Andrew Harp: ways. Funniest one is the guy who's, uh, breast turned into

Austin Lugo: Oh, into the cheetahs.

Yes. .

Andrew Harp: Yeah, . I

Austin Lugo: don't know what that's supposed to mean. Who cares? Who cares? It's weird. It's weird. . It's

Andrew Harp: weird. . Yeah. This part of the movie is so cool. It happens very quickly.

Austin Lugo: Yeah. It's just back to back to bank. Little skits, I guess you could describe them. , they're a little bit less funny, but they're conquering all their fears.

But one of them has not been able to let go of their bodily, I dunno, fucking something about their body or something. So they have to cut off like all of his

Andrew Harp: fingers. Oh yeah. He like his, he's like, my hand's fro, my hand is frozen and they like badger him. And then yeah, he has to cut his fingers off .

Austin Lugo: And once they conquer all of their fears, The thief is followed by the, the prostitute in her monkey.

And the leader's like, you should go with your, you should leave . You should just leave. Like you just conquered this fucking mountain and all this shit, but you should just go home. I'm like, just leave. And he's like, okay. And they just go the monkey, the prostitute in the thief. They're gone.

Andrew Harp: The movie ends a little clumsily element.

I think the ending is fine, like the very ending. But yeah, like the movie, kind of like when they finally get, see the elders. It's like, okay, what are we doing here? Like, petroski kind of like, like walks around a little bit and he like tells the guy to like cut off his head, but then he, it doesn't actually happen and it's like, okay, they'll sit

Austin Lugo: around the table, which have been again, mannequins.

There's a ton of mannequins in this film. So many

Andrew Harp: mannequins. I like that they laugh cause it kind of makes sense, right? Because like in that situation, I would probably laugh too. Like I wouldn't be angry, I would laugh just cuz it would be like, oh yeah, like of course this would happen.

Austin Lugo: They conquer the mountain.

They sit at a table, and of course the, the final scene is we zoom back and it's all, it's all a movie. Out the camera. What does he say? O rescues. Yeah. I'm like the zoom camera. The camera .

Andrew Harp: Yeah. And you see the whole set. Yeah. I like the ending. It's a little, some people will probably be put off by it, but. I think he's just trying to say like, the idea right of the Holy Mountain is kind of recognizing that, you know, the world that we live in isn't reality.

The whole experience that he put them through is to, uh, recognize reality and recognize. Themselves and not their images or their possessions. Right? It's like the, before these were people that were, I guess, like they identified themselves by their image and their possessions, and now they just are themselves with nothing.

But that's good. And Juro, I guess is trying to say that, you know, we need to be free from our images. And even now we are an image, like we're in a movie, like this is a movie, it's a commodified image. And so we. Be free from this as well. .

Austin Lugo: There's a film by Michael Angel Antonio. One of his final works came out in like eighties, I think, late seventies, early eighties, which has a very similar ending.

The whole movie takes place on the boat, but the final image is they pull back. Outside of the boat and you can see that they're on a set, something very similar. And of course, Monty Python does the same thing in That's true. Yeah. The holy Grail, right? ,

Andrew Harp: yeah. They they do do that.

Austin Lugo: Yeah. Classic meta. Of course, Mel Brooks does it too.

In fuck Which film does he do it in? He does it in, uh, blazing Saddle. Blazing Saddles,

Andrew Harp: right? Yeah, yeah. The very End

Austin Lugo: Business Saddles Classic Meta Contextual.

Andrew Harp: Idealization. I kind of like it. I just like the idea. No, it's fine. That, that the characters are so self-actualized, , they're even going to escape the confines of the movie that they're in.

Austin Lugo: Yeah. It's a nice foul moment and, and then the movie. Movie ends right there because they, that's it. They love

Andrew Harp: the movie . They did it. They, they love the movie. Yeah. Except for the couple, I guess, but they, I guess, exited the movie. His conclusion is a little lukewarm, but whatever. I guess it doesn't matter.

Yeah, like I said, the movie kind of ends in a weird way. Not, not, not the meta shit, but just kind of, I don't know, just how everything kind of wraps up. It feels a little, uh, clumsy, but it's fine. I think for the most part, I mean,

Austin Lugo: it, it's a challenging film to wrap up because Right. It is just so insane. The first moment's, the last.

So I think it's, it's always gonna be a challenge to kind of fi try to find a way to, to tie this bow in a knot, as it were. But that's it, man. That's the movie.

Andrew Harp: Yeah, that's the Holy Mountain by Hodorowski. Final thoughts? Once again, I think everyone should watch It Must be seen to be believed. One of the most audacious movies ever made.

Some of the greatest, most iconic images ever produced, and I do identify, I would say that I do identify with like its messages on spirituality, commodification, reality. . I think all that stuff has done really well. Like I said there The Devils, which is maybe another movie we should eventually watch for the show.

I don't know, I think that movie kind of does similar things but is a little bit better. But this movie is still iconic. It's still incredibly interesting. I think it's worth many re watches and yeah, there's just really nothing like it and an incredible kind of surreal Mexican fantasy movie. And uh, yeah, it's definitely a nine out of 10 for sure.

For me, it's just so audacious. Yeah,

Austin Lugo: this film is insane. It's, uh, surreal, disturbing, nauseating at times. It's all over the place. Very cool. Set designs. Some great music. These actors were clearly all in for whatever, which is impressive in its own right. I am very impressed by the visuals and the imagination of this film and the, uh, Technical aspects of this film.

I think it's a a very impressive film. However, I didn't really love the experience. It wasn't necessarily something I would love to have again. I am glad that I saw it. I'm glad I had the experience, but for me, it wasn't a enjoyable experience necessarily. I think for me, I found his stuff a bit pretentious at times and a little on the nose.

So I don't know. I think everyone should definitely watch it. I think it's an experience that needs to be had, as you said. But for me, I, I, I'm gonna give it a four outta 10 because I, I did not enjoy the experience, even though I think it's a very well made. I very much respect the film. It

Andrew Harp: just wasn't for me.

I figured it was a gamble for you in terms of whether or not you would enjoy it or not. It's pretty particular, uh, , it's a particular, uh, uh, taste, I guess, you know, for me it's just, uh, it's right up my alley. Yeah. , I think it's just a whole cinematic package, in my opinion, but yeah, it's, it's, it's fine.

Austin Lugo: Yeah.

There's definitely nothing in the world like it, so if you wanna have experience like no other, this is definitely one to have.

Andrew Harp: He's still alive. He still makes movie. Oh shit.

Austin Lugo: Really? Still making

Andrew Harp: shit. Still makes movies. Yeah. He was gonna make a, have you ever heard of the documentary Husky's Dune? Yeah.

There's a movie about how he was gonna make a a Dune movie that would've been insane . It was gonna have like a HR Geiger designs and it was gonna have music in it by Pink Floyd.

Austin Lugo: Like that would've been fucking insane. Yeah, I've heard of it. I can't imagine.

Andrew Harp: The only other ho seen is Santa Sang. Which is kind of like a circus type of movie.

That one's really good. That one has a lot more Hispanic influences, like a lot of like culture, Hispanic culture. Yeah, I like that one too. That one's, that one's pretty dark.

Austin Lugo: All right, y'all. Thank you for listening. You can find everything I do at Austin Lugo one two.

Andrew Harp: I'm on letterbox at Retro Andrew, r t r zero.

Austin Lugo: And you can find this podcast wherever you hear podcast. You can also find us on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Nothing to Say or Theater 42. And thank you all for listening. Thank.