What 1973 surrealist film by Alejandro Jodorowsky features a thief and an alchemist?

What 1973 surrealist film by Alejandro Jodorowsky features a thief and an alchemist? The answer is The Holy Mountain. The film begins with a thief who resembles Jesus and encounters an alchemist, who transforms the thief’s excrement into gold and recruits him as an apprentice.

Jodorowsky wrote, directed, scored, and starred in the film. The alchemist and thief then gather seven powerful figures, each associated with a planet and representing corrupt or destructive aspects of society. Together they set out to find nine immortal masters living on the titular holy mountain, hoping to obtain spiritual enlightenment and eternal life.

The film is known for elaborate rituals, religious imagery, grotesque tableaux, occult symbolism, and abrupt shifts between satire and mystical spectacle. Its ending famously breaks the fourth wall: the alchemist reveals the cameras and film crew, then tells the characters and audience to leave the Holy Mountain and return to real life. It is sometimes confused with Jodorowsky’s El Topo or Santa Sangre, but the thief-and-alchemist pairing belongs specifically to The Holy Mountain.