Movie Friday Presents: ZARDOZ.

Quick, name the best movie ever mWRONG. ZARDOZ.

Actually set in 2293, which handily avoids the Terminator problem where we pass the future in real time. Also avoided sequels.

Zardoz is the classic science fiction fable from the mind of John Boorman (Point Blank). It was made in the 1970s, when everyone wore awful clothes, dropped acid and listened to Pink Floyd. This was the best era for ridiculous future-society epics, such as the dystopian classics A Clockwork Orange and Soylent Green, and the utopian classic Logan's Run, in which everyone is killed off at 30 (awesome).

Zardoz concerns Sean Connery's exploration of a future world divided between the Eternals, who live forever in an enclosed community called the Vortex, where they hoard all learning and knowledge and dress like one of those scary Greek college houses that are always covering up dark secrets, and the Brutals, who live outside the Vortex in poverty and ignorance, and dress like BDSM dungeon keepers. Sean Connery plays a Brutal given guns and instructed to act as an Exterminator by the flying stone head known as Zardoz (all capitalisation necessary for great scifi). Zardoz drops such Ingsoc-sounding wisdom as "The gun is good. The penis is evil", for great dystopia. Connery and his moustache must discover the connection between Zardoz and the Vortex, instigating a chain of events designed to bring down the Eternals' self-imposed dystopia. I won't reveal what happens but it's better than my life and twice as weird.

Zardoz is the most visually inventive movie ever made. Every frame looks like a prog rock album cover. Everything from time-lapse aging to the sum of human knowledge being projected on people's faces and reverse slow motion gets a look-in, making the last 36 years of Best Picture winners look even lazier by comparison.

One of the most amazing things about this movie is how many people seem to think it's unintentionally funny, like a kitsch embarrassment best forgotten, when in fact it's completely intentionally over the top. Like Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, it's a pretty overt satire using camp as a device, like mood lighting or soundtrack, to give a certain insight into the madness. One clue is when the floating head of Arthur Frayn says "it's a fucking satire" right at the start of the movie (aktyooal kwote). I think people who don't get that think that people in the 70s were stoopid, probably based on their clothes.

The themes of Zardoz concern class and social hierarchy, overpopulation, groupthink and politically correct consensus, length vs quality of life, and the importance of LSD in shaping the art and culture of the 20th Century. Zardoz is the classic time forgot. I can't even find a Halloween costume of it, while stupid shit like Avatar keeps shifting units every year. Let's bring back Zardoz, for great justice.