Event

the Holy Mountain

Considered among Jodorowsky's strongest film work, The Holy Mountain caused a scandal when it first premiered at Cannes in 1973, and has since become considered one of cult-cinema's most challenging and influential films.

Based loosely on French writer René Daumal's Mount Analogue—first published some 20 years earlier—the movie tells the complex story of a journey undertaken by an alchemist (played by Jodorowsky) who is joined by a cast of bizarre figures who go through a series of mystical rites to summit a holy mountain.

The allegorical ascension, a stand-in for personal enlightenment, is rooted in the rich and shocking visuals that came to define Jodorowsky's body of work. With the logic of dream-vision, Jodorowsky creates a sun-weary terrain punctuated by horrific violence and the wonderfully strange, including one memorable scene where the Spanish conquest of South America is rehashed by frogs and iguanas in full period costume.

Special introduction given by Debby Harry, with Jodorowsky in attendance