Synopsis for
Zardoz (1974) Plus avec IMDbPro »

The scene opens with a speech made by Arthur Frayn (Zardoz) explaining that he is immortal. He explains that this story "may" happen in the future. He is a "fake god" and a magician. But he is invented too, asking if the viewers of the movie themselves are part of a fiction. He asks - "Is God in show business too?".

The world is divided into 2 groups, the Brutals, and the Immortals. The Brutals are shown riding around on horses worshiping a giant floading head (Zardoz). The floating head speaks to extemporize information. He explains that they (the exterminators - which are like a higher class of "Brutal") have been raised to kill the brutals and prevent them from multiplying. "The gun is good" - "The penis is evil - the penis shoots seeds and makes new life to poison the earth with a plague of men ... but the gun shoots death and purifies the earth of the plague .. go forth and kill.. Zardoz has spoken". Piles of guns come pouring out of the floating head. Zed (Sean Connery) gets one of the guns and fires it toward the camera. Music which is taken from Beethoven's seventh symphony plays as the head continues to float around over opening credits. Most of the scenery was shot in the Wicklow mountains in Ireland, which was also used for another John Boorman film, "Excalibur".. for those who are interested.

Somehow, Zed has breeched through the mouth of the floating head and wakes up with his handgun. He is surrounded by nude "immortals" who seemed to be wrapped in plastic. Sean Connery shoots an individual who seems to be sneaking up on him - but he is trained to kill, so it may be the only reaction that could be expected - or it may have been planned - stay tuned. The gun is a Webley-Fosbery semi-automatic Revolver - (the only semi-automatic revolver ever made - it is a .455 round - some people call it an automatic revolver which is incorrect) for those who are interested. This individual is Arthur Frayn or Zardoz himself but that is not clear yet. The individual floats out of the head yelling "without me you are nothing.. pointless". Now it seems the head has landed at an immortal community. Sean sneaks out.

He finds plants in bubbles of plastic, some kind of flour mill, strange hydraulic tubes, diagrams of evolution, and even a miniature Zardoz puppet and a jack in the box. The flour mill comes about because the purpose of Zardoz is to get the brutals to grow wheat for the apathetic's sustenance. A voice announced in the background the agricultural needs of the various areas (or vortexes) in the immortal world and what they require and what they have produced. A hologram of Arthur Frayn, vortex 4 comes into the room and announces his name and vortex number. Zed sneaks outside with his gun and finds his first flower. He inquires into some sort of hand held voice operated computer as to what it is. It explains it is a flower whose purpose is decorative. Zed finds a river and washes his face as a woman immortal comes up. He tries to shoot his handgun at her but instead his gun is torn from his hand by some form of telepathy. He discusses with her that he thinks he is in the vortex where you go where you die according to Zardoz. She explains the only way he could have gotten here is through the stone head as an exterminator. (exterminators are brutals in charge of killing brutals in the "Outlands"). They fit him up with some mind reading equipment where they review some of his memories of "the Outlands". The Outlands are considered a land which needs to be controlled. He is the first brutal who has penetrated a vortex so they want to study him.

Arthur has apparently vanished mysteriously. Apparently, the individual Zed shot in the stone head's mouth was Arthur Frayn. His memories are fragmented, killing brutals, land cultivation etc., Arthur was apparently delegated to control the "Outlands" Their "supercomputer" if that's what it is (later we learn it's the tabernacle), shows Arthur Frayn's accident falling from the stone head but refuses to show the last pre-accident mental images. Consuella (Charlotte Rampling) has an argument with May (Sara Kestelman) as to how much they should pursue these first images from the outlands with their mind reading device. Zed was chose to selectively breed out in the outlands and was permitted to "take" a woman. There are many arguments about the effect of having a brutal in the immortal world. A mind reading legal proceeding takes place whose verdict is that Zed will live, for 3 weeks in any case, rather than be put to death.

An immortal named "Friend" (John Alderton) threatens Zed with a stare which has some power in this world to find out what happend to Arthur Frayn. He takes Zed through a room with paintings and sculpture including what looks like a Van Gogh self portrait with his head opened up and a rock inside of it. The immortal is studying the development of cars. The immortals break bread and eat. A medical analysis is done on Zed. The machine interrupts his medical analysis to engage in an accusation of pyschic violence against George Saden (an immortal). He denies it. "Friend" explains that punishment in this world is done with aging. If you kill yourself, the "eternal tabernacle" just rebuilds you. They run across a colony where people are eternally senile as punishment. The trial of George Saden begins again.. this time he confesses to hating everyone and himself. But the immortal suggests that whatever his vote, it will do absolutely no good. At this point, Zed finds a zombie like female and begins to try to rape it, but it is an "apathetic", and he gives up for lack of a response. This is a disease sweeping through the colonies. He has a violent outburst and the verdict comes in for George Saden to take 5 years off of his live.

A lecture on penile erections takes place by Consuella. They understand the physical process, but not what causes the stimulus. It used to have a purpose to reproduce, but no immortals get erections anymore. They show Zed a series of erotic movies to see if he will get an erection. The movies do not stimulate him but just looking at Consuella does. This seems to embarrass her as well as arouse her slightly. Zed is placed in a cage like an animal. Consuella tests his reflexes and asks him why he likes to sleep. He says he likes it because he has dreams. The immortals do not dream, having achieved "total consciousness".. now 2nd level meditation takes its place.

May then begins to analyze him, explaining that he is a 2nd or 3rd generation mutant, and therefore genetically stable. She says he is a threat to their way of life because he is superior in some sense. She makes a deal with him that he will lay low and not disturb anyone and she will watch out for him. His presence continues to disrupt their community. Another psychic vote is taken as to his fate and it is decided that May has been given seven days to complete her scientific study of Zed and then he will be terminated.

The group of immortals attempts to go to second level mediation over the idea that "the monster is a mirror, and when we look at him, we look at our own hidden faces" and "Friend" refuses to go to second level and is beyond redemption so he is outcast to one of the colonies where you are old. This is probably because Zed causes him to see something horrible about himself. He begins to ramble on that the vortex is an obscenity and that he hates all women and so forth. It seems to be an exercise in conformity and Friend is somehow outcast.

Zed runs out to the periphery shield of Vertex 4. He can see some brutals on horseback over the mountain. Zed then goes to look for "Friend" at the senile colony. "Friend" is not happy and tells them that this creature from the outside world has the gift of death.. he is mortal. The elders start to attack Zed, but he is too strong and waves them back by waving a crutch at them. Friend wants death.. sweet oblivion.. an end to the human race. Zed tries to find out where the tabernacle is so he can break it. Zed goes out to seek May, who already knows he wants to destroy the tabernacle. She says he must want the truth and says she can burn him.. she wants to read his mind. We see backflashes of Zed hunting and killing brutals, until one day he "loses his innocence" by shooting someone through a window (he missed) and then led him on as if in a game so he spared him.

This person showed him a book and Zed had learned how to read. He learned how the world was before the darkness fell. There is one book that is the main focus of attention but he will not reveal the title. He shows her the memory of killing Arthur and explains that Zardoz told him to stop killing and to take prisoners and cultivate. The book is "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". This is where Arthur Frayn got the name Zardoz. The person that taught Zed to read was Arthur. Having read the book and deducing Arthur's plan was to get into the head and find out the truth, or maybe revenge. Consuella catches Zed and May necking, and accuses her of bestiality and suggests that May be aged 50 years. Zed gets into a brief tussle with May and somehow ends up blind. An immortal named "Star" restores his sight with her powers. She indicates that Zed is "the one.. the liberator". Star explains that the world was dying and they took all that was good and made an oasis and then they cut themselves off from the world which was falling into a dark age. They had to harden their hearts. Zed is the price they are paying, he has brought hate and anger into the vortex. Suddenly, they are attacked through their plastic wrap greenhouse by other immortals. Zed goes back out to the periphery shield of Vortex 4 and starts giving commands to brutals on horseback. People on horseback with torches seem to infiltrate the immortal world. Imortals start to express physical attraction for one another then proceed to go into some kind of 2nd level meditation again.

Zed runs away and the immortals try to track him down. The seniles manage to find him and he tells them he still has to look for Friend. The immortals are in chaos, they have recovered their ability to experience sexuality and brutality and there are many who wish to hunt down the brutal (Zed). May asks Zed to inseminate them all and they will teach him all they know, and perhaps he can break the tabernacle. An end to eternity, and maybe a higher form of life. They touch teach him through osmosis and they take his seed. The education begins. The phrase "The Law of the Unity of Opposites" is repeated several times. Different languages and music are transmitted. Finally he knows everything they know. The technology was originally invented to go to a different star but it was a dead end. Zed asks how the vortex came about. Friend responds that it started with the scientists, but they were middle aged, and the vortex people were they offspring. These are the renegades. They used their power to erase any memory of the tabernacle or how to destroy it so that the human race would evolve to perfection. But.. their minds were not up to it.. and they failed. And now they are trapped by their own devices. Zed fires his weapon in an attempt to destroy the tabernacle. It turns out a crystal in the forehead joins them together. One gift remains for Zed, the crystal. When he can see into the future through the crystal he will be ready.

Zed tries working with the crystal, but has no luck. A voice calls Zed out of his room and he is brought through a series of mannequin figures and the rebuilt Arthur Frayn dressed in a top hat. He quotes T.S. Eliot and prompts Zed to fill in the poem - it is "I am Lazarus, come from the dead. Come back to tell you all I shall tell you all." He hold a mysterious ball that Zed cannot divine anything from either. Violence and general rowdiness continues to permeate the immortal community. Zed is asked what he sees in the ball. He sees Consuella, and prevents her from killing him. She says "In hunting you, I have become you". Zed quotes Nitzche, "He who fights too long against dragons, becomes a dragon himself". Finally, Zed sees something in the crystal ball. He inquires to his handheld computer where the tabernacle is, but it will not answer. He figures out that the crystal is the tabernacle, but it turns out to be a battle of wits with the tabernacle. The crystal disapears. He ends up "in" the crystal. Zed fires his gun, then the crystal tell him that he has destroyed them, "we are gone". The immortals begin smashing up their art gallery. Zed now has a powerful aura which he uses to move some immortals back through time to preserve the art they were smashing. Friend asks Zed what is next. Zed says the older man will know.

The old man remembers the way it was. The Vortex is an offense against nature - which is why they made Zed. The man dies. The stone head crashes into the ground. The renegades are dying like flies. Arthur explains he was the one who came up with the idea of breeding Zed, but Zed says he has looked into the force that bred Arthur. "We've all been used." Everyone is mortal again. All the immortals wish to die, and an attack by the remaining brutals causes many of their deaths, but they do not seem to mind. Zed runs away with Consuella to a cave. Arranged music from Beethoven's 7th symphony plays again as all the immortals are shot. Consuella is pregant and gives birth. The child grows older. Zed and Consuella die. Fade out.