Cinema: Celtic Twilight

ZARDOZ Directed and Written by JOHN BOORMAN

John Boorman is always after something new. Much of his work (Having a Wild Weekend, Deliverance) has been a remolding of traditional genres-the musical or adventure film-to suit a more personal, sometimes dour vision. For example, he and Screenwriter Alexander Jacobs transformed Point Blank from an ordinary gangster-revenge story into an essay in gun-metal existentialism and a portrait of Southern California absurdism that is still unrivaled. Zardoz, his sixth film, loses something of its predecessors' fighting trim. Although Boorman excels at expressing ideas through action, too many of them, and too muddled, are tossed off...

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