Doesn't anyone else see this film as OVERKILL?

Watch it with the directors commentary on if you want some insight into this masterpiece.

Drop acid not bombs.

I'll state my opinion here. I watched bits and pieces of it in a skateboard shop when a friend of a friend brought it in and played it from his macbook with telnet internet access. He skipped around to different parts saying things like "watch this naked chick bang this robot and they will make a robot baby" and "that midget has no arms!!!" and "check this kid out, he's about to get his balls chopped off" and my favorite "look! they have a machine, and it turns your sh!t into gold! Check out the jesus dude getting high off of the burning feces! Radical!!!!!" I then realized that he was the perfect audience to watch the film. Somebody who sees it for what it is, pointless bullsh!t comedy made by a guy who was tripping on acid throughout 99% of its production, and its purpose was to reveal to everyone the positive and negative (but mostly positive) effects of hallucinogenic drugs. Brilliant filmmaking, truly brilliant filmmaking.

You cannot smash down a wall with pin pricks.

"I can't think of any other filmmaker who has crammed more gaudiness or trashiness into one film"

You haven't seen Caligula have you?

Did you ever notice that people who believe in creationism look really un-evolved? - Bill Hicks

Yes, this film is overkill, and that is the point. The Holy Mountain is often misconstrued as a product of its time and viewed as a new age relic. However, THM is actually an absurd and deeply CYNICAL SATIRE of new age hippie wisdom, and it predicted the rampant materialism and excess of the following decades. So these binary ?art/not art?, ?deep/shallow? arguments I see here are missing the point entirely. That being said, how much more obvious could it be? I fail to see how this film is enigmatic, I mean, a Christ production factory? Astrological represenatives each being more entrenched in corrupt business/politics than the next? The big punchline at the end points the finger at the audience for ever thinking a film could act as spiritual guide. It's all very straight forward for anyone at all familiar with REAL DEAL avant garde filmmaking (see: Luis Bunuel, Man Ray, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, plus tons more). Jodorowsky was the beginning of pop surrealism (feature length films, with comparatively big budgets and wide distribution, that blend surrealism with conventional narrative structure) which would eventually culminate in the works of mainstream directors like David Lynch, Terry Gilliam and David Cronenberg.

I never saw "The Holy Mountain" as being a "message film". Jodorowsky had his moral convictions, sure, but those seem irreverent to the film.

To answer your question, YES, it most certainly is overkill. That's why I love it. It's a no holds barred, freewheeling, psychedelic experience. It's an uncontrolled explosion of visual and narrative creativity. It's rollercoaster ride through the smoke and funhouse mirrors of Jodorowsky's mind. It's a miracle that the film has any form whatsoever.

"Not fare well, but fare forward, voyagers."

Very true, couldn't have said it any better.

Totally agree. These "cultural" films of the 70's are nothing but a long boring depiction of naked emperor.