The theme of free will in this PROFOUND film

This genius of a movie is about free will. Like the film "Identity", Head is about fictional characters who become aware that they are fictional characters who don't really exist. They fight this every way they can: they walk off sets, tear up scenery, punch other actors; but at every turn, their actions turn out to be part of the film that they can't escape being in. The producer of head (actually Rafelson, but played by Victor Mature) is shown as a giant god-like figure who toys and plays with them for his own amusement.

For instance, in the rapid flashes of a psychedelic party scene, if you watch frame-by-frame, you can see Rafelson sitting next to the camera and cameraman, very deliberately shooting into a mirror. He is revealing that the party is actually fake, it's just being shot in a studio with actors.

As they try more and more desperate actions to break out of the film, the Monkees commit murder and, finally, suicide by jumping off a bridge. But in the final scene, even their deaths were all for the movie, and their waterlogged bodies are stored in a warehouse by the producer to await his next project.

This is made all the more poignant by the fact that the Monkees really ARE fictional characters who forced themselves into the real world, through the power of their music.

It's a truly amazing film which I've watched at least a dozen times. Ironically, near the end, that sexy Peter Tork has what he rightly sees as a hugely profound revelation that solves their problem, but unfortunately, no one listens. Peter realizes: "it doesn't MATTER if we're in the box" (the film). He means that it doesn't matter if will is free or illusory. he says that "the only important thing is to let the present moment occur and occur... to just let 'now' HAPPEN, as it happens", without analyzing or evaluating or judging whether the experience is "valid" by some abstract definition.

Seeing this as I did at a very important time in my life (I was trying to figure out how to escape being a girl geek), Peter's revelation broke my self-imposed recursive trap and helped me more than he or Rafelson or Nicholson will ever know.