Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #15 June 2015 | Page 53
society of the Vortex. Visually, the Eternals are presented as androgynous. The men are physically slight
compared to Zed. This is reinforced by the soft, unisex
(but decided feminine) clothing of the Eternals, particularly compared to the minimalist leather of the Exterminators. Of course, the most obvious expression of
this emasculation: all Eternal men are impotent.
thought-provoking, the script contains many instances
of speech-making, opaque sentences and needlessly
ponderous phrases. For example, Zed refers to a beach
as “the place where the land meets the sea.” While
lines like this reinforce the mythic nature of the story
and may have read well, they are needlessly cumbersome and pretentious.
In the finale, Boorman suggests that a conventional
family structure, one in which the male is the clear
leader, is the “proper” life for people. However, a
less conventional reading is also valid, one that sees
balance in all aspects of life as the key to a happy
existence. Zed eventually loses his—in Boorman’s
terms—masculine urge for violence, refusing to kill
the Eternals, even though they want him to, and literally hanging up his gun. The reunited family of man,
woman and offspring takes place inside the ruined
head of Zardoz. This is a powerful image, one that
places a human race in harmony with itself (the male/
female dyad) and nature (the use of technology to
help, but not replace aspects of human existence like
reproduction) at the centre of everything.
Although the cinematography is good—the Director
of Photography is George Unsworth, who was also DP
on 2001 and Superman—the set design for the Vortex
is problematic. This is a problem because most of the
run-time is spent there. The Outlands look appropriately dreary, with muddy fields, ruined buildings and
a cold, uninviting “place where the land meets the
sea” conveying a grim, stagnant world. The scenes of
Zardoz flying through the air or hovering over a field
of prostrate worshippers are impressive and convey
a sense of power. The Vortex, however, is visually
bland, a country estate with a few futuris F