Zardoz (1974) On DVD

Sean Connery delivers a powerful performance in this fantastic vision of a future world divided into two societies. The Vortex is an isolated, heavily guarded, lush community of immortal scientists and intellectuals called the Eternals. Outside the Vortex lies a desolate world laid to waste by war and pollution, peopled by the Brutals, primitive savages and killers who worship a fearsome god, Zardoz. But one rebellious Brutal (Sean Connery) is determined to survive on his own terms, which could threaten the balance of civilization and possibly destroy it. Co-starring Charlotte Rampling, Zardoz is an entertaining adventure praised for its special effects and imaginative vision.

When Sean Connery abandoned the James Bond series to seek out new challenges, he turned to director John Boorman's sci-fi project, ZARDOZ. Connery stars as Zed, one of a carefully bred race of supervisors, the Exterminators, who oversee the agricultural labor of the neanderthal Brutals, since in 2293, with most of the Earth's surface off-limits as a polluted Outlands, industrial society has been abandoned. All worship Zardoz, a huge flying stone head who makes periodic visits to Earth to pick up grain consignments and issue bizarre statements involving the male anatomy through the voice of Arthur Frayn (Niall Buggy). An increasingly skeptical Zed decides to stow away inside the head, which deposits him in the Vortex, a commune of scientists and intellectuals who are ruled by the ever-youthful and asexual Eternals. They capture Zed, allowing geneticist May (Sara Kestleman) to use him as a research subject for a limited period, but he begins to arouse more than scientific curiosity in the commune's supposedly nonsexual female population.