toothsomesound
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Who here has seen it? Watched it over the weekend. One of my co-workers gave it to me and really talked it up for me. Curious to hear people's opinions. For the uninitiated:
"La Montaña Sagrada (The Holy Mountain, reissued as The Sacred Mountain) is a 1973 cult film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky who also participated as actor, composer, set designer, and costume designer. The film was produced by Beatles manager Allen Klein of ABKCO after Jodorowsky scored an underground phenomenon with El Topo and the acclaim of both John Lennon and George Harrison (John and Yoko Ono put up production money). It was shown at various international film festivals in 1973, including Cannes,[1] and limited screenings in New York and San Francisco. However the film was never given wide release until 2007, when a restored print toured the United States, screening with El Topo, and released in DVD format from May 1. The film is based on "The Ascent of Mt. Carmel" by St. John of the Cross and "Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing" by Rene Daumal, a student of G.I. Gurdjieff. In particular, much of Jodorowsky's visually psychedelic story follows the metaphysical thrust of "Mount Analogue" such as the climb to the Alchemist, the assembly of individuals with specific skills, the discovery of the mountain that unites Heaven and Earth "that cannot not exist" and symbolic challenges along the mountain ascent. Daumal died before finishing his allegorical novel, and Jodorowsky's improvised ending provides a clever way of completing the Work (symbolic and otherwise.) The central members of the cast were said to have spent 3 months doing various spiritual exercises guided by Oscar Ichazo of the Arica Institute. The Arica training features Zen, Sufi and yoga exercises along with eclectic concepts drawn from the Kabbalah, the I Ching and the teachings of Gurdjieff. After the training, the group lived for one month communally in Jodorowsky's home before shooting began. Jodorowsky was also instructed by Ichazo to take LSD for the purpose of spiritual exploration, and he administered psilocybin mushrooms to his actors during the shooting of the death-rebirth scene." From The Holy Mountain wiki