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!”
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