The Blind Christ (2016)

Christopher Murray's El Cristo Ciego (The Blind Christ, 2016) leaves Netflix tonight after a 5 year run in which it's garnered almost no attention, even among those who should really be most interested. Rotten Tomatoes only lists a single review, in Spanish. IMDb lists a few more, but only one is in English, by the inestimable John Bleasdale, and even then it has the URL wrong. I checked with friends from Arts and Faith and none of them had seen it or even heard of it, despite it feeling, to me at least, like exactly the kind of film that has always fared well in their Top 100 lists. And tonight it sinks without trace, leaving Netflix unlikely to return and still without an English language DVD release.

To me this feels like a significant error on the part of those interested in the Bible and film. "Sometimes..." the DJ of my current favourite radio show says as he reflects on a great track from the 80s that failed to make the charts "...we got it wrong". This is a film that deserves better even if people don't like it's conclusions, it's undoubtedly worthy of discussion.

Despite Murray's English-sounding name, both he and his film are Chilean. Murray, interviewed here by Variety, was born in Santiago and graduated from the Faculty of Communication at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where he is now a professor. While lead actor Michael Silva is a professional, most of the rest of the cast are non-professionals, inhabitants of Chile's Pampa del Tamarugal.

Even without knowing Murray's affiliations, his understanding of Catholicism is unmissable. The title alone, cut down from the working title "Parable of a Blind Christ",¹ suggests as much and it's not long into the film before the centrality of Chile's surviving vestiges of Catholicism becomes apparent. The proportion of the population professing Catholicism has dwindled from 70% in 2006,² to just 42% last year,³ and there's a sense in which, the buildings remain, and desire for something beyond the people's experience remains, but they only rarely coincide. Like the rest of the film's architecture found in desert villages the churches are crumbling, the priests have gone, leaving the remnants of what was, perhaps, once a thriving community. Poverty permeates almost every shot, yet Murray finds a dignified beauty in that, which never detracts from the sense that these are people who are both desperate for something to happen, yet highly sceptical that it ever will. "God abandons and is abandoned".⁴

So when a stranger comes visiting there's a mixture of anticipation and detached cynicism. The stranger is Michael,⁵ the film's central figure, through whose eyes and voice we witness much of what we're shown and told. The film opens with Michael recalling a story, and there are a lot of those, of a boy who asked his friend to nailed his hands, Christ-like, to a tree , while a waited three hours for a sign. "His sacrifice... attracted God's attention". It's unclear, though, who the boy was and what actually happened. Did Michael himself witness a miracle, or is it just a story, a parable, that so reflects Jesus' often enigmatic way of talking?

Either way when Michael hears that his friend's cousin, Mauricio, has pneumonia,⁶ he sets off across the desert to see if he can enable a similar piece of divine intervention. Michael's actions carry a high price. His father immediately tells him that he'll disown him if he goes and when regardless he leaves that night, he encounters similar opposition elsewhere.

His first port of call is to a desert shrine/grotto where people queue up to partake in the ritual. Michael insensitively says "You only have to pray to God. He's inside you" and tells the story of an artisan, who work became revered so much that he created a sculpture of a volcano so spectacular it unintentionally burned down all his work. When he follows this up by saying "Man's work disappears" and pointing out that the shrine's central "figure doesn't walk or talk" he's forcibly moved away from the shrine, tied to a stake and left there. Eventually a local woman, who's tells him she's a carer for her mother, helps liberate him and he comes to her house and helps bathe and care for her mother. 

Michael makes many similar statements and tells many such stories. "I don't believe in any religion" he says at one point, "God doesn’t talk to the church he talks to the people. When you’re alone the Christ inside you opens his eyes". Michael, despite what people begin to think, is not that he is special, but that "Anyone can heal. Anyone who realizes they come from God". "All you have to do is believe". "If god is with you you shouldn’t be scared." Phrases like this crop up at regular intervals. There's certainty that typifies many young people of his age, that lacks empathy, or at least awareness of the lives that people have lived

Yet Michael too wavers in his self-assurance. The audacity of his journey and occasional claims such as "I'm going to heal him" at times contrast with his delivery. When a man asks him to pray for him he suddenly seems to lose confidence at the last minute sensing that God has abandoned him. But it's also around this point in the film that Michael develops his most significant relationships in the film, first with the teenaged Bastian and then with his mother. Bastian idolises him; his mother enjoys his company and shares her story (including a shocking story about Bastian's father – "a fucking psychopath". The evening after an impromptu driving lesson, the two sleep together. 

That night, in the darkness, a young girl calls him " the Chilean Christ and prays with some folk as they gather round a campfire. It's unclear if it's because of this, or because of what happened with Bastian's mother, but either way Michael leaves before sunrise to resume his travels. This time however he faints in the desert and is rescued by another small community.

Here there appears to be some sort of functioning faith community, albeit one led – in the loosest sense of the word – by an ex-prisoner who had been handed the reins by the last, rapidly departing, official priest. He attempts to convince Michael to look after the village's tiny chapel (though he questions "who am I?") and he completes some baptisms in a nearby stream. When this meets some opposition he tells the story of a hit man released from prison shoots himself only to find love. And so he undertakes the final leg of his journey. 

At this point I'm going to raise the [SPOILERS] tag as I want to discuss the end of the film, but don't want to spoil it for anyone that's reading this before watching the film.

[SPOILERS]When he finally arrives it's clear that stories about him have gone ahead of him and people come seeking miracles. Yet he finds Mauricio not only ill, but in a deep state of depression: "Everything’s happened to me. I sometimes wonder why God keeps me alive. I want to be dead. I don’t want To kill myself. I want him to do it." Yet the number of people who have turned up persuade them that Michael should pray and see if Mauricio will be miraculously healed. The resulting scene is reminiscent both of Andrea Mantega's "Lamentation of Christ" (1480) as well as the climactic scene in Carl Theodor Dreyer's Ordet (1955). 

[SPOILERS]Yet unlike Ordet, when Michael prays, his friend is not healed. Mauricio tries to reassure Michael (and perhaps himself) by insisting "Your company is enough" but Michael leaves. Having been barefoot for most of the film – perhaps a symbol of his spiritual idealistic naïvete – he slips on a pair of boots – a returns to the prisoner-turned-church leader of the penultimate visit on his travels. Now it is a crestfallen Michael who laments "God has abandoned us". 

[SPOILERS]But now it's the older man's turn to tell a story, one of a girl hadn't slept for 2 weeks. Jesus was brought in, and goes to consult his father, but hears nothing so tells the girl that God is waiting for her in her dreams. The girl slept. Michael describes it as a con, but the older man explains that God "went away so Jesus would fill the emptiness. Then Jesus went away so we would fill the emptiness". He rings a nearby set of altar bells and further clarifies "Faith is the sound that fills the emptiness". He heads up to the roof, but when Michael follows his new friend has disappeared and he has a vision (perhaps) of the sea.

[SPOILERS]And so Michael returns, first to his father's house, where a shrine has now bee set up, to reconcile to his father, who himself has been impacted. "You brought faith son" he tells him by way of explanation for the way the streets near his house are festooned with night lights. Perhaps these are types of crucifixion and resurrection scenes, the death of self and the new life that follows.

[SPOILERS]Finally, Michael returns to the boy and his mother, but like so much of the film even this is left unclear, inviting the view to make up their own mind. It's so typical of the film, it's reliance on the vagueities of story, with their multiple interpretations and invitation to participate.

[END OF SPOILERS]

What I like about the film is that it consistently refuses to tell you what to think. Is Michael, this "Chilean Christ" a modern version of Christ; Christ himself; a Christ-like figure; or just a deluded, if charismatic, man who has some growing up to do? The character's name, Michael, captures this brilliantly being both the name of God's number two messenger ("angel" means "messenger") and the name Michael itself literally means "Who is like El?" (i.e. God). Or it could just be an ordinary name that remains popular in "Catholic" countries. Did Michael experience the divine when he was younger, or did he just feel like he did after 3 hours in the sun losing blood? How do the people come to believe in him even before he arrives in their village?

The parallels with the Jesus of the Gospels are certainly there, but interestingly they do not follow the contours of the typical Christ-figure. For one thing there's no cruciform pose, nor are the episodes that are paralleled those that are typically included. The parallels are either with more obscure elements (like Jesus's failure to heal on occasion) or they are more tenuously linked. It raises the question, am I just looking for parallels because of the film's title (The Blind Christ) and how people refer to him within the confines of  the film itself ("The Chilean Christ"). This is, in itself, feels like the medium being the message. It is not just the characters in the story that don't quite know how to pigeonhole Michael, or what to think about the possibility of divine activity.

And then, of course, there are the stories, which appear regularly throughout the film, often introduced in a way so typical of the Gospels "Let me tell you a story" which chimes with some of the little introductory phrases we find in the synoptics, with their sometimes unclear meaning and their more experiential method of conveying meaning.

The film is beautifully shot, and moves along at a slow contemplative pace that allows you to savour and immerse yourself in the story. The performances never feel like the work of amateurs, and the genuine concern for the plight of the people of the Pampa del Tamarugal evokes the ghost of neo-realism. Some of the lines of dialogue are hard to unpack and fly past a little too quickly, but that's a minor quibble with a thought provoking, challenging and deeply affecting film.

==============

1 - An old bio from Torino Film Lab used this name about his "forthcoming project".

2 - According to the "Encuesta Nacional Bicentenario 2016: Religió" survey, available online: http://web.archive.org/web/20171107025524/
https://encuestabicentenario.uc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2016/
11/encuesta-bicentenario-2016-religio%cc%81n.pdf.

3 - According to the "Encuesta Nacional Bicentenario 2021: Religió" survey, available online: http://web.archive.org/web/20220121091337/
https://encuestabicentenario.uc.cl/wp-content//uploads/
2022/01/Encuesta-Bicentenario-2021-Religion.pdf.

4 - It's the film's leading character, Michael, that says this, but it would have spoiled the flow of the review if I've said this there and I don't have the time at the moment to re-write this to fix that.

5 - See notes on the use of the name "Michael" in 4th paragraph from the end.

6 - This is the condition as described in the subtitles earlier in the film, but, once revealed, the actual condition seems to be a skin/wasting disease/infection of the ankle.

Hombre Mirando Al Sudeste (Man Facing South-East, 1986)

Running throughout Eliseo Subiela's Hombre Mirando Al Sudeste (Man Facing South-East, 1986) is a single question: is Rantes (Hugo Soto) suffering from delusion, or is he, as he believes, an extra-terrestrial? The film's locations, muted tones and acting styles makes its world feel enough like our world to make this seem unlikely, but then a handful of scenes show him apparently performing explainable acts, a dash of telekinesis here, a bit of mind-control there. Plus the inmates in his psychiatric hospital are starting to form long queues, just to receive his touch.

Whilst these two possibilities play out, a third concept arises primarily from Dr Denis (Lorenzo Quinteros), the specialist to whom Rantes has been assigned, namely the parallels between Rantes and Jesus. Denis, who for most of the film is unaware of Rantes's miraculous powers, nevertheless ponders the ways in which he is like Christ and whether he himself is destined to become Rantes's Pontius Pilate.

The Christ-figure element is emphasised in many ways throughout the film from early shots of Rantes with a prominent crucifix in the background, to the unexplained acts, to the growing following and the arrival, halfway through, of a Magdalene-esque character, Beatriz Dick. Beatriz's surname is an apparent reference to author Philip K Dick who work often involve scenarios "where nothing is quite what it seems" (Cornejo, 2015: 72). Dick (Inés Vernengo) initially describes herself as an evangelist, whilst Rantes calls her her a saint.

In a pivotal moment in the film Rantes delivers a Sermon on the Mount/Plain style speech during a discussion with Denis:

If someone suffers, I console him. He needs help? I give it. So why do you think I'm mad? Someone looks at me, I respond. If someone talks, I listen. You've all gone slowly crazy not recognizing these responses. By simply ignoring them. If someone's dying, you let him die. Someone asks for help you look away. Someone's hungry you are wasteful. Someone's dying of sorrow, you lock him up so you don't see. A person who systematically behaves like that who is blind to the victims may dress well, pay his taxes, go to Mass, but you can't deny he's sick. Your world is terrifying. Why don't you look at real madness for a change? Stop persecuting sad people, meek people, those who don't want to buy, or can't buy, all that crap you'd so gladly sell me.

The film's most enjoyable scene occurs towards the end when Denis, Rantes and Dick attend a public, outdoor, concert and Rantes gets the crowd dancing, before supplanting the conductor and leading the orchestra himself. Footage of this is intercut with that of a joyous riot which breaks out inside the hospital at the same time. The inmates dance and skip round the hospital as if in earshot of the music, which plays on whilst the camera flits between the concert and the inmates. It parallels the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and similarly leads to the inevitable clash with the authorities. From then on Denis is told to administer DRUGS to Rantes and to use electrocution if he becomes catatonic. Rantes's final words are "Doctor why have you forsaken me?"

Many of these elements will feel very familiar to fans of Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), but in fact the Christ-figure theme is not the film's primary concern. Indeed it's no coincidence that Subiela's film ends on a darker note. Rantes dies; none of his fellow inmates, or even Dr Denis himself discover self-actualisation. Denis finds a photo of Rantes and Dick (who he decides must be Rantes's sister) from fifteen years before with a third person torn off (though their shadow is still visible. In his satisfaction of solving the puzzle - at least in his own eyes - Denis manages to assuage, to some degree, the unease he felt when challenged by Rantes earlier in the film, and his own guilt at Rantes's death.

This conclusion is one of a number of things about the film that could easily be seen as unsatisfactory. Why is Denis not more troubled by the death of a patient he has clearly formed a bond with? More to the point why when he spots the pattern of the alcoholic father estranged from his children, is he unable to recognise how it applies to his own life? Why does the film seem to indicate that Rantes has special powers, but then conclude that he doesn't? If Rantes is unable to "feel" the emotional impact of the music as he claims, why is he so clearly moved by it in the concert scene? And what about all of the other strange touches in the film: the couple with sacks over their heads, kissing; the way Dick changes her shoes when leaving the hospital; the open windows and doors; the blue liquid that Dick emits.

These seeming inconsistencies are not the result of careless filmmaking, but more as a way to draw attention to the film's deeper meanings. Set just after the end of the Argentinian military dictatorship (1976-83), the film grapples with how seemingly rational people could overlook the horrors of the regime. The film treats "Argentina's most recent dictatorship...allegorically with reference to repression in a psychiatric institution" (Page, 2009; 182). At the same time, practices at the hospital "become symbolic of the torture and repression carried out in clandestine military during the 1970s" (Page, 2009: 18). As Kantaris explains, "the political allegory, the religious fable, and the theme of disavowal, are carefully woven into a set of subliminal ciphers which the film uses to convey messages about its own subtexts" (1998).

Some of these "ciphers" are more obvious than others. The couple kissing despite the sacks over their heads both references René Magritte's painting Les Amants (1928) as well as the hoods used by military's torturers to conceal their identities (Reati, 1989: 32). The open windows and doors also touch on the work of Magritte and other surrealists as a sign of transition and difference between dualities such as reason / madness and rational / irrational (Kantaris). Others though, such as Dick's shoes, remain obscure despite the emphasis the film places on them as a bearer of deeper meaning significance.

However, the central question - whether Rantes is an alien or not - remains highly ambiguous. The miracles are open to interpretation, shaped both by the audience's pre-conceptions and the generic conventions at play. Something is happening in the café scene, which, in many genres, would certainly be seen as miraculous acts. It's notable that the film was released in 1986, just four years after E.T. and it's interesting to note the similarities and differences between the two films. In both films the titular character believes himself to be an alien, but only in Spielberg's film is it clear he is. Both characters perform miraculous signs and contain Christ-like characteristics. Both are hiding from authorities, whilst transforming the lives of the special, more innocent, lives around them. Both face a form of death though only Spielberg allows for a meaningful resurrection metaphor.

Nevertheless, Spielberg's film is clearly from the fantastical/optimistic wing of the science-fiction genre where stories are clearly fictional and, as a result, miracles are part of the characteristics. In Subiela's film, other sci-fi conventions are largely absent. The setting feels like the real world and Dick's confession and the old photo that the camera closes in on (referencing another Christ-Figure film, Cool Hand Luke) suggests Rantes is deluded. The conventions of voice-over encourage the audience to trust the narrator, in this case Denis, and this is difficult to overcome despite his failings being clear.

In other words there is no clear, single, agreed upon answer as to who is sane and rational and who is deluded and irrational. Indeed the possibility remains that Denis is sane even though his behaviour is more irrational than his patient's. There's more than a touch of Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (dir. Robert Wiene, 1920) here in terms of the question of who is sane and who is suffering a delusion, but Subiela goes far further than Wiene did, with the film's denouement tipping the balance back towards ambiguity, rather than revelation. Yet rather than a more typical, vague, ambiguity, here there are two perspectives neither of which satisfactory fits the evidence. Some will see the telekinetic scenes as being clear evidence that Rantes is an alien and that Denis's conclusion is incorrect. Ohers will see the photo as affirming that which is seemingly true of the non-filmic world in which we live - that aliens do not live amongst us and that, therefore Rantes is deluded. To quote Denis' response to Rantes, summarising the dilemma he faces "If you're not loony, I'd have to accept that you're an alien. That would mean I'm the loony".

There are three points here. Firstly that not only is the film's interpretation determined, by questions of genre, but also the film's genre is, to a certain extent, determined by it's interpretation. If the viewer interprets the miracles to be real and Rantes to be an extra-terrestrial then the film sits, albeit loosely within the science fiction genre. If not then it remains within the more realistic medical drama genre (though the film retains certain surreal elements).

Secondly, that the willingness, or otherwise, to believe that Rantes performs miracles reflects, to a certain extent, the viewers willingness to accept miracles in real life. Those with a pre-disposition to accept otherworldly explanations may be more likely to accept the miracles at face value rather than interpret those scenes in other ways (e.g. coincidence or Rantes' imagination) and they have to provide an alternative explanation for the photo at the end of the film. But accepting either scenario comes down to interpreting scenes in a certain fashion. The Christ-figure elements here are a destabilising force, making the acceptance or rejection of a particular position more instinctive and entrenching positions more deeply.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it can be argued that attempts to find a coherent answer to what really happened is to miss Subiela's point. There is an irreconcilable conflict not only between Rantes explanation of what is happening and that of Dr Denis, but also between either explanation and a plausible "rational explanation of events within the film" (Kantaris). This points "towards a postmodern reading where nothing is what it seems" (Cornejo 2015: 74) which ultimately questions " the very possibility of conveying narrative and / or truth through either narrative or images" (Cornejo 2015: 76). For Kantaris, the unexplained ciphers or unresolvable tensions the film create a "splitting of belief...[an] almost a necessary condition of any accommodation to life under the military regime in Argentina"(1998). Furthermore "the whole psychiatric institution, can be seen as a displaced representation of that which the Argentine middle classes had attempted to disavow and repress, those extremes of sadistic violence carried out on individuals by the very machinery of state" (Kantaris, 1998).

The film has gone on to become fairly influential, although in it's translation to US culture almost all of its allegorical power has been lost. K-PAX (2001) was more or less a Hollywood remake starring Kevin Spacey as the patient and Jeff Bridges as the doctor. Shorn of the post-military dictatorship context it lost much of its narrative power, and is reduced to 'heartwarming' moments and trite aphorisms. It also injected a greater moment of hope into its ending as scenes of Bridges reuniting with his son (a young Aaron Paul) are accompanied by Spacey's recalled voiceover offering his advice "to get it right this time around, because this time, is all you have".

A further, and unlikely, incarnation of the film is in the long running comedy series The Big Bang Theory where a visually similar actor to Hombre's Hugo Soto plays an ultra-rational character Sheldon Cooper whose detachment even from his highly scientific group of friends allows him to commentate on the quirks and irrationalities of everyday life. Here both the Christ-figure element and the post-dictatorship theme have entirely disappeared.

Nevertheless it says much about the power of Hombre mirando al sudeste that it has had an influence far beyond the borders of Argentina ans Subiela's typical audience. It's release on blu-ray late last year will hopefully enable the original to find a greater audience willing to engage with its unusual style and its deeper themes.

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Cornejo, Yvonne Frances (2015) The embodiment of trauma in science fiction film: a case study of Argentina Leicester: University of Leicester. Available online -
https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/32515/1/2014cornejoyfphd.pdf.pdf
Kantaris, Geoffrey (1998) "The Repressed Signifier: the Cinema of Alejandro Agresti and Eliseo Subiela". In Francisco Domínguez, ed., Identity and Discursive Practice: Spain and Latin America (Bern: Peter Laing Publishers, 2000), pp.157-73.
Available online - 
http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/egk10/notes/repressedsignifier.html
Page, Joanna (2009) Crisis and Capitalism in Contemporary Argentina Cinema (Durham & London: Duke University Press.
Reati, Fernando. 'Argentine Political Violence and Artistic Representation in Films of the 1980s'. Latin American Literary Review 17.34 (July-December 1989): 24-39.

Nazarin (1959)

Luis Buñuel is one of a small group of directors whose work started in the silent era and ran way into the 1970s. As a big fan of another member of that exclusive club - Alfred Hitchcock - it’s tempting to get drawn into comparisons between the two, not least because spiritual issues in general and their Jesuit Catholic educations in particular, were major influences on their work.

I suspect that the attitudes to both men to questions of faith varied throughout their long careers. Certainly the harsh critique of religion in Buñuel’s La Voie lactée (The Milky Way), where religion is a monstrous edifice built of false foundations, is in stark contrast to Nazarin where Buñuel finds sympathy for his religiously motivated lead, even if he implies that such a lost cause is an indication of the absence of God.

It’s an unusual premise. Priests in movies tend towards one of two positions depending on the filmmakers’ prior beliefs: good priests whose example and ministry hint at the possibility of a good and gracious God; or bad priests whose sins typify the absence of God and, for the filmmaker at least, the murky motivations of many of those who have gained from abusing their position.

Here however Buñuel presents us with a priest who distils the very best of all those movie priests but uses his ineffectiveness and naiveté to question the existence of God. In part it’s an inversion of the Job story, whereby despite God’s servant living exactly as he ought to, he ends up downtrodden and cursed, repeatedly causing harm not only to himself, but also those around him. There’s no upbeat ending however and ultimately it’s God, rather than his servant, that ends up in the dock.

Yet it’s also a subversion of the example of Christ. Father Nazario is the very epitome of someone following in the footsteps of Jesus. He protects and attempts to reform the prostitute Andara; he frequently gives all his money away; he takes upa job only to leave it when he realises his appointment means others might go without; and he continues to preach the gospel to anyone that will listen. He even resists being called upon to miraculously heal a feverish girl, prays anyway, and then denies responsibility when she is healed.

Yet, that incident aisde, instead of a successful ministry Nazario finds only failure and rejection. Indeed Buñuel even strips him of his chance to be a martyr. He’s imprisoned by the authorities, bound and due to March to court, but then at the last minute separated from the other prisonners and allowed to travel unfettered and accompanied by a guard out of uniform. Whilst Nazario is not exactly free, he is no longer fearing for his life. Indeed this is one of the few Christ-figure films that neither ends with the death of the protagonist, nor even photographs them in a cruciform pose.

He does however manage to incur the wrath of the political and religious authorities. The church is scandalised by his relationship with the two women who accompany him, Beatriz and Andara. Andara is a former prostitute, Beatriz has psychotic episodes - including one where she imagines a picture of Jesus coming to life and mocking her - but both become devoted to Father Nazario and follow him everywhere..

However, much to his annoyance, the source of their devotion is not his teaching, despite his frequent chastisement, indeed ultimately Beatriz returns to her abusive lover Pinto. In the final scene she is shown falling asleep on his shoulder as they ride past a bedraggled Father Nazario en route as he walks the long road to face the authorities.

I say “authorities”, but by this stage the religious authorities have long made up their minds. Even at the start of the film he is considered something of a loose cannon, operating without a parish, By the end they consider him “reckless”, a “rebel spirit” affected by “madness”. Many parts of the film are damning of the church, but none more so that the penultimate scene where one of the bishop’s representatives tells him that “your habits contradict those of priests. Your ways confront the church which you claim to love and obey.”

What’s interesting about the film is where it finishes, further along the road to judgement Nazrio is given a pineapple by a fruit seller. DIfferent writers have interpreted this in different ways. Some see it as symbolic of the crown of thorns, others as suggestive of a handgrenade and still others as a nod to the fruit of the tree of good and evil from the Garden of Eden. At first Nazrio rejects it, but then he changed his mind and acepts the women’s charity, walking on with a troubled, although rather ambiguous look on his face. Has he realised for the first time that he is a human who needs others as much as they need him? Or is this his realisation of the absence of God.

Either way, ending at this point reminds me of how the ministry of Jesus must have looked like at this point. Despised and rejected, imprisoned by corrupt political authorities after the religious authorities have washed their hands of him. Rumours of him healing people in the past pale into insignificance the numbers of those who cheered him have dwindled away to just a prostitute and a mad woman. And even then they can’t stay awake at the crucial moment.

Christianity, of course, centres on the notion that this was not the end of the story. But for a while, at least, things must have seemed as bleak as they do at the end of Nazarin.

Jesus' Son

Jesus' Son is not, as it might sound, the latest daVinci code-esque conspiracy theory, but a film about drug use and rehabilitation. An adaptation of Denis Johnson's book, which took it's title from the Lou Reed song Heroin.

Having neither read the book, nor been particularly familiar with the song, it's hard to know how they and their religious elements compare to those of the film. Reed's son uses the describes how heroin makes him feel "just like Jesus' son" to "convey the power, the feeling of pleasant self-aggrandizement, that overwhelms him when he is high".¹ The book apparently has redemption at it's core in such a way as to link it to the influence of "the Savior". Yet the most overtly religious moment in the film is a visual clue, and it's certainly possible that the film alters the original work in some respect.

The shot shown below appears about half way through the film, is the key to unlocking a deeper level of meaning. In combination with the film's title and various minor visual indicators, such as crosses in the background and so on, it invites some kind of religious interpretation.In addition to the religious imagery there is also his encounters with people of faith - in particular the "Mennonite" couple he encounters towards the end of the film. FH finds the wife's singing eerily compelling, and visits the house frequently. When one day he is drawn inside he is discovered by her husband. His response - "Take what you want" - may be one of the classic responses to a household intruder, but the manner in which it is spoken suggests a genuinely free invitation from someone who holds his belongings lightly. Since we know that FH has also, in some sense, "wanted" both his own freedom from his drug problem and this man's wife, it only makes the ambiguity of the statement all the more intriguing.

But Jesus' Son is neither a conventional film about Jesus, nor even one which contains a Christ figure. The lead character, unnamed and credited only as FH, is occasionally helpful to people, but it's nothing particularly noteworthy. All too often his vague good intentions are thwarted because he is incapacitated, and, as he is nearly always high, he often makes things worse for those around him instead. It's only in the third and final act, when he begins to get rehabilitated, that he is able to genuinely help people, Even then it's something he has to learn, rather than something that comes naturally.

Instead the film takes an unconventional approach linking its story to Jesus' death and resurrection. FH's relationship with Michelle is his journey to the cross - before they meet he doesn't appear to be a heavy drugs user, and only once she dies is he mysteriously able to free himself from their power. The transition between the death section of the film and the resurrection / ascension parts of the film is marked by a kind of burial scene. It evokes memories of Christ's death for reasons that are, at this stage, unclear to me, but I suspect it's some kind of visual reference to a piece of Christian Art. This is followed by FH overdosing on a huge pill that's "like an Easter thing".Then there is, of course, the soundtrack which ends on Wilco imploring his listeners to "turn your eyes to the Lord of the skies" (from 'Airline To Heaven'). Various other sings add to the film's meaning, but what is perhaps most surprising, and no doubt significant, is the absence of Reed's'Heroin'. Perhaps this is because the book / film is something of a riposte to Reed's more pessimistic take on the allure of drugs.

It would, no doubt, be possible to revisit the film and speculate as to a host more specific allegories. Is the hand-gliding, naked woman meant to represent an angel etc. etc.? I suspect, however, that this would be to push things too far.

Ultimately, though, the film's major theme - like that of the book, is redemption, but not a redemption that comes from within. The 'crown of thorns' that we see on his forehead through the café window has been superimposed onto him without his knowledge. Whilst it's likely that FH recognises the religious nature of the Mennonite woman's singing, he is drawn to more that just the music. Furthermore, Reed's phrase "Jesus' son" is used here somewhat ironically. The film / book turn Reed's use on it's head - FH is Jesus's son because in the midst of all that is going on someone is looking out for him. Aside from the film's religious elements, this is an impressive piece of filmmaking which seeks to epitomise the life of regular drug users. Avoiding the clichés of living in squalor and the onset of cold turkey, Jesus' Son shows us a life totally absorbed by drugs of any and every kind. When an alcoholic friend of FH offers him the chance to earn some quick money, he finds himself pulling out the copper wiring from his friend's house: it's scrap value will give them enough for another night being drunk and high.

The episodic nature of Jesus' Son is, in part, due to the book which is described as a collection of stories rather than a single novel. But it also conveys the sense of passing in and out of real life, episodes that are vivid and memorable and others that are at best hazy, and at worst forgotten. Indeed, the jumping timeline, and the strangeness and incompleteness of many episodes leaves the viewer feeling a little hazy. But like FH's own journey, we begin to see things with more clarity as we enter the film's final act and see a man that was lost, become found.

1 - Tim Parrish, "Jesus on the Mainline: Lou Reed and Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son." Journal of Religion and Popular Culture - Vol VII. Summer '04

The Seventh Sign (1988)

Back in 1991, Demi Moore was at the heart of a controversy when a nude picture of her, taken whilst she was pregnant with her second child, appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. Was it sexual objectification or a symbol of empowerment?

What the coverage of this debate generally failed to take into consideration was that three years earlier, Moore had also been photographed nude whilst pregnant with her first child. On that occasion, however, it had been part of a reasonably successful film - Carl Schultz's The Seventh Sign.It's possible that Seventh Sign escaped the controversy because it was released in 1988 - the same year that Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ reached (or often didn't reach) theatres. Whilst The Seventh Sign was released first (in April), discussion about Last Temptation began a long time before it's eventual August release.

The two films have much in common. In addition to the nudity, both featured unconventional and unflattering characterisations of Jesus, had something of an apocalyptic outlook, and gave the role of Jesus to actors who made their names starring in popular war films. Of all the cinematic Jesus's, Jurgen Prochnow (Das Boot) is perhaps the least conventional-looking. With short, slightly curly, blond hair, no beard, a pockmarked face, and long, lean features is almost diametrically opposed to what the historical Jesus would have looked like. Furthermore, his 47 years make him the oldest screen Jesus of modern times. But this is not the Jesus of history (other than in a couple of brief flashes back to the first century), but the Jesus of Revelation. In fact it's not until a good way through the film that it's actually revealed who Prochnow's character actually is. Confronted by Moore he calls himself a messenger from God, "I came as the lamb and I return as the lion". The clues have been there from the start, of course. Prochnow has been wandering around opening the seals that unleash the various stages of the apocalypse. Only the risen Christ gets to do that.

Yet whilst there's no reason that the Christ of the apocalypse should resemble the Jesus of history physically, it's the contrast with the biblical Jesus's character that is so strange. Prochnow is cold and emotionless (a feature heightened in the minds of English speaking audiences by his German accent). In contrast to the compassionate Jesus of Hal Hartley's similarly themed Book of Life, this Jesus never seems to wrestle with his awful task, nor does he anticipate the greater future beyond the apocalypse that its author does. He briefly bemoans the world's inability to change, but it's very much delivered with a shrug of the shoulders. The problem with The Seventh Sign is it's a conventional genre picture. Whereas Book of Life was able to subvert and surpass the conventions of the supernatural/apocalyptic thriller, this film is unable to build on its good start and falls back on an amorphous vaguely-religious mix of obscure ancient texts, pick-and-choose prophecies, immortal villains, and reincarnation. It does give a passing tip-of-the-hat to goodness and self-sacrifice, but by then the film has already well and truly sunk under the weight of its own contrived nonsensical climax.

The handling of the seven signs is also weak. The concept of "seven signs" is taken from Revelation, but those signs are an overly literal, jumbled mixture of the events that accompany the breaking of the seven seals, the blowing of the seven trumpets, and the pouring out of the seven bowls. At the same time they are not actually literal - there are literal seals, but no bowls; a Christ figure ushers in some of the signs, but there are no angels; etc. etc. In other words it's a highly selective literal approach to the Bible's most symbolic book. The seals/trumpets/bowls section of Revelation lasts for 12 chapters, but in order to find seven distinct "events" to structure the narrative around, the screenplay just picks out a single word or phrase from here and there and labels it as a "sign". But these events are so localised that only experts can decode them, as opposed to the fact that in Revelation the signs are metonymic. Rather than being simply localised, unusual occurrences, a literal reading of this section would suggest that the signs actually are part of the end of the world. They would not be secret signs, but clear indicators. Of course, most scholars consider that the signs should be taken more symbolically, but that would be to move this film very much out of this genre. The supernatural/ apocalyptic thriller genre has two main paths - that of widesp read destruction or that of the secret conspiracy, and Seventh sign rather weakly opts for the latter.

It's not all bad. Those into early Christian legends will appreciate the references to the myths of Seraphia and Cartaphilus/the Wandering Jew. The story of the Wandering Jew was a popular choice for early film makers, with at least 4 silent films being made with that title. As far as I'm aware this is the first occasion that it has been made post-WW2, and it's notable that the character in question is now Roman rather than Jewish. More importantly, the film has aged incredibly well for one made in the 80s. Even that decade's best films are usually blighted by terrible wardrobes, awful hair, and badly synthesized soundtracks. Here, however, only Moore's oversized glasses, give the game away. More importantly, Schultz handles the tension well, and creates a good sense of mystery around his lead villains. It's just a shame that as one of them is widely renowned as a ground-breakingly compassionate teacher we never quite know who we're meant to be routing for. Jesus rarely makes a good villain.
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There are a few useful resources on this film, notably the full screenplay which is available at Drew's script-o-rama, and a collection of photos from the Movie Screenshots Blog. I've only discovered it today, but I'm sure I'll be returning. Finally, Danel Griffin's review is certainly worth a read.

The Christ Figure of Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke has been one of my very favourite films for a long time now. Whilst I appreciate that it isn't the most technically or artistically excellent film in the history of cinema, there's plenty of those things to admire and so somehow it's just found a special place in my heart. However, until last night, I'd never actually seen it in widescreen, or on DVD. I have to say it was an incredible experience - almost like watching it again for the first time. For a long time I was cynical of both the widescreen TV, and the DVD agenda and saw them as unnecessary ideas to milk money from a gullible public. Whilst I don't doubt that such reasons have accelerated the revolution (compare the time DVDs took to gain market dominance over VHS compared to the replacement of audio tapes with CDs), I have to say I have changed my mind. Watching Cool Hand Luke in widescreen converted what had been fairly unspectacular compositions into memorable ones, and the extra clarity of the DVD image gave fairly uninspiring images into objects of beauty. All of a sudden there was scene after scene of parallel lines tracking t-heir way to their vanishing point on the horizon, and arrays of single light bulbs contrasted against deeper, darker backgrounds. The film is particularly relevant to this blog inasmuch as it is the classic example of a "Christ-figure film". Messianic imagery is fairly common these days, whether it's in ET, Braveheart, The Matrix or Gladiator, but it was considerably rarer back in 1967, and this film has far more Christological richness than any of those modern films. Furthermore the film invites us to examine the parallels with two very specific shots which can only have been designed to draw comnparison. The first (shown above) is perhaps the most obvious, but the final shot also lays over the shot of the road where the chain gang continue with the torn, and now repaired, photo of Luke heralded by two "angels" (Dragline's words not mine) seemingly floating in the skies. Significantly, whilst we saw the photo being torn in unevenly several times, the tears on the final photo form a cross (i.e. a maximum of three tears in half). Most discussions of this film, however, read it a little simplistically. Rather than the film being a simple form of semi-allegory, it creates images and a story line which draw comparisons to the life of Jesus, but these comparisons fall in a non-linear, and sometimes multiple way. Consider for example the end of the lives of Jesus and Luke. In the gospels, Jesus is i- betrayed, ii- arrested, iii-tried, iv-beaten, v-walked to the point of execution, vi-killed, vii-buried, viii-resurrected, and finally ix-ascends whilst x-the church is born. Luke however is betrayed at least twice. Once during his first escape by a fellow inmate who decides at the last minute to try to escape, but does so in such a noisy fashion that he draws attention to Luke's escape. We see an overhead shot of this prisoner hanging onto a tall wooden fence post which evokes a comparison with Judas. However, this shot is often overlooked in favour of a comparison with Dragline who brings the authorities to Luke at the end of the film. The film invites that latter comparison as well, but it is too simplistic to say that Dragline=Judas. In most other places in the film, both before and after this betrayal, Dragline functions as Peter. Dragline's burly figure fits with the stereotypical (though extra-biblical) image of the big fisherman, he is the leader amongst the apostles both before his betrayal, and, significantly, after it, when he is shown testifying to the others what occurred that night (shown right). The film breaks with the logic of the film to show this moment - this location is over an hour's drive from the prison, and the chain-gang are neither working or eating when Dragline tells his story. In a similar way Luke's death is depicted twice. Obviously Luke's actual death occurs at the climax of the film. But the image of Luke lying flat on his back in grave-like hole is too obvious to ignore (see right). There are also several long via-dolosa style walks, Gethsemane-like questioning moments, and beatings - in retrospect, the early boxing match is very reminiscent of Gibson's later Passion of the Christ . We also see Luke give his great commission to Dragline (who is on his knees) before Dragline's betrayal: "I done enough world shaking for a while, you do the rest of it for me." This scene in itself functions as an ascension scene, Luke moves away from Dragline towards the sanctity of a church where he converses with his father. So too then, there are two ascensions. Hence the comparisons with the story of Jesus do not directly correspond, but criss-cross in numerous places. There are multiple depictions of certain scenes, whilst certain scenes in Luke's story have no points of comparison. Additionally, the characters in the film may map to a number of biblical characters or none. One other aspect that is hardly ever commented on is the music. The film's music is both diegetic (i.e. generated by action such as Luke playing his banjo) and Non-diegetic (i.e. laid on top of the film afterwards). The digetic music is particularly significant, and nearly all the songs played have a religious significance. When Luke's mother pays him a farewell visit him (before her illness finally kills her), Luke's return to the compound is accompanied by the Harry Dean Stanton character singing" Through the days of toil that's near, if I fall dear Lord who cares? Who but thee my burden shares? None but thee dear Lord, none but Thee". Later on, Luke vents his grief and anger by singing "Plastic Jesus". Even later Stanton's character's sings "Ain't no Grave gonna keep my body down...keep your mind on the above". All these add to the religious texture of the film. The best Christ figure films function in at least two ways. Firstly they act as a form of incarnation - bringing Jesus to the people in an everyday way that is far easier to relate to than the first century Jewish context he actually came in. Secondly they should also shed further light on the Jesus story, by inviting the viewer to look at it from a new angle. Cool Hand Luke is particularly successful in this regard. Partly because it throws out linear parallelism in favour of a much richer, multi-faceted approach, partly because the film's music underlines some of these comparisons, and also shines light on the story, and partly because it's central character is able to interact with God. Luke's conversational prayers have two layers of meaning both taken with the obvious and intended sarcasm, but also when taken at face value they enhance the spiritual resonances within the film. Click on Images to see a larger version