204 - Zardoz

Your Stupid Minds kicks off 2023 with a movie that takes place in 2023 (so they say). The infamous 1974 film Zardoz, directed by John Boorman, fresh off Deliverance, and starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling.

Zed (Connery), a Brutal Exterminator commanded by the giant stone floating head god Zardoz to kill the Brutals as a form of population control, stows away on the giant floating head and finds himself in a bucolic village full of immortal hippies called the Eternals. The Eternals use the power of the Vortex to live forever. Since they cannot die, the Eternals can only punish one another (mostly for Bad Vibe Crimes) through rapid aging.

Zed is kept as a test subject by May (Sara Kestelman) to find out why he can die and also have sex. Conseulla (Rampling) hates him but is also intrigued. Zed navigates this strange world in order to exact his mission to kill the Eternals, because they hate themselves and want to die.

Featuring:

Ludwig van Beethoven, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons