Film Comment: Zardoz

Zardoz (1973) is a film set in the extremely  distant future, so far in the future that no attempt is made to tell the audience when it occurs.  Over the untold centuries, Earth’s population has split into three distinct cultures: the Eternals, who used science to become telekinetic and immortal and have long since become bored with everything, even science; the Brutals, who live muddy lives of primitive mind-numbing poverty and ignorance; and the Exterminators, who gleefully hunt and kill the Brutals for their bloodthirsty god, Zardoz, a giant flying stone head.

One of the Exterminators, Zed (Sean Connery) is smarter than the others and wants to know the answer to one question, “Why?”  Committing an act the other Exterminators would see as stupidly blasphemy,  Zed jumps into the open toothy mouth of the enormous giant head, Zardoz.  When the head begins to move, Zed stays inside and is carried away to his destiny.

Standing in the mouth of the idol, Zed sees sights he’s never seen before; forests and a settlement with buildings.   Zardoz, which is obviously a mechanism, carries him to the Vortex, a force-field surrounded paradise in which the Eternals live.

The presence of a barbarian stirs up long-dead emotions in the Etertnals, especially in one woman (Charlotte Rampling).  The Eternals allow Zed to link his mind into their computer which controls the tedious day to day functions of maintaining their environment.  Zed is suddenly no longer an illiterate barbarian Exterminator; he is now a hyper-genius barbarian Exterminator.

Along with all the Eternal’s accumulated historical and scientific knowledge, Zed has also learned their secret: “It was all a joke.”  Zardoz is a machine, his name is stolen from the book, The Wizard of Oz, and he was created to find the perfect Exterminator.  The Eternals have groomed Zed to be their executioner, to do for them for what they could not do for themselves.

Some people find this film to be excruciatingly slow, and it is.  I think the speed of this film is intentional.  It moves slowly to highlight the deadly boredom of the Eternals.  They have done everything, seen everything, discussed everything, learned everything, and have absolutely no challenges to which to respond.  Perfect health, limitless wealth, and eternal life have become their prison.  Zed, the ruthless killer, is exciting because he is dangerous, because he can end it.

Many Christians have a deficient understanding of eternity.  I doubt that many actually believe the Hollywood idea of the dead becoming angels and sitting on clouds playing harps for eternity.  Besides being totally confused about who the angels are, this future would become a Hell just like the one faced by Zardoz’s bored Eternals, because it would never end or change.

More likely, many Christians probably never give it a thought.  Thinking about death and eternity are unsettling to most people.  To the Christian, though, they shouldn’t be.  Jesus has defeated death.   We have absolutely nothing to fear.

The biblical understanding of eternal life is expressed in the Greek words, ζωὴ αἰώνιος, “life aeon-long.”  An aeon (αἰώνιος) is the longest period of time the human mind can conceive, endless time.  Jesus has said (John 8:58), “Before Abraham was born, I AM,” an existence of NOW in which the past, present, and future are all one thing.  There is no beginning and no ending, everything is now.

In this eternal now we will not just float around on clouds, playing harps.  We will be “kings and priests” (1Peter 2:9, Revelation 1:6, 5:10) and we will judge angels (1 Corinthians 6:3).  And here is a secret: our eternal life has already begun.  It started when Jesus said, “It is finished!”