Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
The Alchemist assembles together a group of people from all walks of life to represent the planets in the solar system. The occult adept's intention is to put his recruits through strange mystical rites and divest them of their worldly baggage before embarking on a trip to Lotus Island. There they ascend the Holy Mountain to displace the immortal gods who secretly rule the universe.
Jodorowsky's surrealist masterpiece is visually extraordinary — Roger Corman-level audacity meets high-art composition, with images that burn into the memory permanently. Its Novelty is essentially unmatched; no other film looks, feels, or operates quite like it. The Ending is genuinely bold and meta-cinematic, breaking the fourth wall in a way that recontextualizes the entire journey. Cinematography by Rafael Corkidi is stunning, balancing occult tableau with psychedelic color. Plot and Acting are more deliberately fractured — the narrative is intentionally anti-coherent and the performances broadly ritualistic rather than nuanced — so these sit just above average rather than at the ceiling.