Zardoz 1974 Twentieth Century Fox
Director: John Boorman
Starring: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling
I'll be honest... At first I thought, "Sean Connery gave up James Bond for this?". I mean, it starts out very much like a Doctor Who episode, with a floating stone head, coming down from the sky to greet a bunch of post-apocalyptic "exterminators". I never have been a fan of Conan type films and always wondered why we would revert to medieval or older times in the future, other than the wardrobe closet is full of said costumes!
Just the same, I kept watching. With the help of Arthur the Magician, Zed (Connery) stows away aboard the head and floats back to "the vortex", where a society of sexless but otherwise utopian people have conquered death and live in "paradise"- much like a hippy love cult. A freckled scientist takes an interest in Zed and receives the OK to keep him for a while and study him. She wants to break down his DNA and I suspect, has a funny feeling in her groin!
The leader of the group (Rampling), is not so sympathetic. She has a general distrust of Zed from the beginning. She, Arthur and the rest descend from the elders who initially built the vortex, but who then could not tolerate immortality and were punished for the misdeeds by being aged into senility- This the common punishment for any crime... aging.
With the help of the local spiritual leader (another freckled girl, who goes topless half the movie!), Zed begins to unlock the mystery of the vortex and the tabernacle at the center of it. The magician makes his way back to assist with this mystery. After bestowing all their knowledge on Zed and planting his seed in several of the women, they send those women out into the world and band together to destroy the vortex and their own immortality!
For all the cheap effects and medieval hippy cult stuff at the beginning, this really does pan out into a wondrous and deep story, with serious questions about reality, death and life itself. I especially liked that the magician led Zed into a library, where he eventually found the book that made him question his god (the floating head) and seek to find the truth. Lofty but noble, and a real head-trip... to use a 1974 expression. XXXX, despite the floating head!