Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo helped inaugurate the midnight movie
phenomenon. Its success spawned The Holy Mountain, through
interventions by John Lennon and Allen Klein. After a scandalous release
and a 16-month midnight career, The Holy Mountain was relegated to the
underground world of fan bootlegs for over thirty years until its
limited restored release in 2007. This short study reveals how The Holy
Mountain, a poetic, hilarious, and anarchist cult film by an
international auteur, anchored in post-1968 critiques, is - at the same
time - an archaeological capsule of the counterculture movement, a
timely subversion of mystical tenets, and one of the most mysterious
films in the history of world cinema.