Catching 'Zardoz' in 4K in Ikebukuro!

Zardoz at the Shin Bungeiza theater in Ikebukuro. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Tonight, I caught a special screening of the 4K digital remaster of John Boorman's Zardoz (1974), a movie with a rather mixed reputation. Most folks seem to dislike it, but it does have a bit of a cult following among those who appreciate its artistic weirdness.

I remember seeing a still from the flick in Phil Hardy's The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies back in the day and being completely mesmerized by the image of that enormous stone head with the seemingly microscopic people standing around it. What kind of a movie could that possibly be?

Well, I had to wait until I was in my early twenties in 2003 or 2004 to see the film on DVD. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. The stone head that had so fascinated me is basically an afterthought and is largely absent from the movie after the first few minutes. The rest of the film was basically incomprehensible to me, so I put the thing away after watching it once and didn't spend much time thinking about it after that.

In the years since, however, I started to become more intrigued by the pre-Star Wars sci-fi movies of the '70s. Those flicks tended to be more thoughtful and at least tried to explore important themes, as opposed to depicting space dogfights and cutesy robots beeping at each other. So, when I saw that Zardoz was being screened at the Shin Bungeiza theater in Ikebukuro, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to revisit the film.

And my opinion of the movie has improved -- though not by a whole lot. While I was a lot more receptive to the themes of the movie this time around, I still found large chunks of it boring and pretentious. The themes also don't get explored in very meaningful ways, and the comedic satire seems out of place in a film that otherwise seems to take itself way too seriously. 

But, man, the effects for the flying head hold up really well. Too bad it takes up so little screen time and is almost immediately given the Scooby-Doo treatment (i.e., the audience is shown that it isn't at all what it appears to be). 

Overall, I'm glad I saw it again, but I can easily see why I was disappointed the first time. But I hope I can see more offbeat titles like this on the big screen in the coming weeks. Let's see what else is playing!