The Holy Mountain

A man (later identified as the thief), representing The Fool tarot card, lies in the desert with flies covering his face. He is befriended by a footless, handless dwarf representing the Five of Swords, and the pair travel into the city where they make money entertaining tourists. Because the thief resembles Jesus Christ in appearance, some locals—a nun and three warriors—cast an impression of his body and sell the resulting crucifixes. After a dispute with a priest, the thief eats off the face of his wax statue and sends it skyward with balloons, symbolically eating the body of Christ and offering "himself" up to Heaven. Soon after, he notices a crowd gathered around a tall tower, where a large hook with a bag of gold has been sent down in exchange for food. The thief, wishing to find the source of the gold, ascends the tower. There he finds the alchemist and his silent assistant. After a confrontation with the alchemist, the thief defecates into a container. The excrement is transformed into gold by the alchemist, who proclaims: "You are excrement. You can change yourself into gold." The thief accepts the gold, but smashes a mirror with the gold when shown his reflection. The alchemist then takes the thief as an apprentice. The thief is introduced to seven people who will accompany him on his journey. Each is introduced as a personification of one of the planets, in particular the negative characteristics that are associated with the respective planet. They consist of Fon (Venus), a cosmetician who produces artificial faces; Isla (Mars), a weapons manufacturer; Klen (Jupiter), a millionaire art dealer specializing in erotic machines; Sel (Saturn), a toy maker who uses her products to indoctrinate children; Berg (Uranus), a political advisor who favors reducing the population for financial purposes; Axon (Neptune), a police chief who castrates his officers; and Lut (Pluto), an architect of minimalist homes. The alchemist instructs the seven to burn their money as well as wax effigies of themselves. Together with the alchemist, the thief, and the alchemist's assistant, they form a group of ten. The characters are led by the alchemist through various transformation rituals. The ten journey by boat to "Lotus Island" in order to gain the secret of immortality from nine immortal masters who live on a holy mountain. Once on Lotus Island they are sidetracked by the Pantheon Bar, a cemetery party where people have abandoned their quest for the holy mountain and instead engage in drugs, poetry, or acts of physical prowess. Leaving the bar behind, they ascend the mountain. Each has a personal symbolic vision representing their worst fears and obsessions. Near the top, the thief is sent back to his "people" along with a young prostitute and a chimpanzee who have followed him from the city to the mountain. The rest confront the cloaked immortals, who are shown to be only faceless dummies. The alchemist then breaks the fourth wall with the command "Zoom back, camera!" and reveals the film apparatus (cameras, microphones, lights, and crew) just outside the frame. He instructs everyone, including the audience of the film, to leave the holy mountain: "Goodbye to the Holy Mountain. Real life awaits us."

Plot from The Holy Mountain (1973 film)CC BY-SA 4.0