Another Italian Nativity Film: Vangelo Secondo Maria (2023)

Over the years I've written about lots of Italian Bible films and quite a few Nativity films, indeed there's a special, and surprisingly large niche of Italian Nativity films, with one seeming to come along every few years most recently 2019's Il primo Natale (Once Upon a Time in Bethlehem) which went on to become that year's biggest grossing home-grown Italian movie at the box office.

Clearly, then there's a market -- in Italy at least -- for modern reworkings of the Nativity story and given the prominent role that Catholicism still has in Italian life it was only a matter of time before a new one came along. And so Sardinian director Paolo Zucca has adapted Barbara Alberti's controversial 1979 novel for Sky Cinema/Vision.

This time though it appears to be more of a dramatic re-telling than a comedy. From the looks of the trailer, and a few of the comments I have read about the film, Vangelo Secondo Maria will offer a more feminist take on the story (it came out in May in Italy) although it is naturally more conventional than Il primo's time travelling comedy.

The film stars Benedetta Porcaroli (above) as Mary, best known for the Netflix series Baby (2018-20) and the recent Sidney Sweeney nun-horror Immaculate (2024). Opposite her as Joseph will be Alessandro Gassmann (below), 33 years her senior, best known for . More pertinently, though, is the fact that he has already appeared in two other Italian Nativity films, Un bambino di nome Gesù (A Child Named Jesus, 1988) where he played the adult Jesus and Raffaele Mertes's La sacra famiglia (The Holy Family, 2006) where he also played Joseph. He had previously had a minor role in one of Mertes's other biblical TV movies Samson and Delilah (1996). So it's interesting to see him both play the father of a character he played a generation ago and to see him play the same character twice in otherwise unrelated movies. Also worth noting is Maurizio Lombardi who played Inspector Ravini so brilliantly in Netflix's recent Ripley remake.

The film's trailer came out 2 months ago and certainly gives the impression that it really wants to bring the story into the 21st century. For a start the camera work seems very contemporary with similar colour tones and lighting, and quirky camera angles, point of view shots that are more about conveying emotion than fact and some sequences that might be fantasy or might just be very outside of the typical telling of the nativity story. 

Then there's the music, which may be nothing to do with the film's final soundtrack, but it certainly conveys a contemporary feel, and the fact that it's sung by a woman adds to the impression that this will be a Mary-centred retelling. Lucia Tedesco puts it so nicely "Quello a cui noi assistiamo è la storia della vita di Maria dall’unico punto di vista di cui avremmo dovuto disporre, ovvero il punto di vista di Maria"(What we are witnessing is the story of Mary's life from the only point of view we should have had, that is, Mary's). That's something that comes across in the dialogue too. Right at the start Mary says "I don't want to get married" and cries that the law is made for men not women". Later on we just hear Mary's voice cry out "I'm challenging you to answer me".

But there's more to it than that. At one point Mary says "let's pretend that instead of husband and wife you're the teacher and I'm the student" and the following shots and dialogue suggest that Joseph takes her up on that and sets about equipping her, not only teaching her more about the law but also what looks like some kind of inner-life-focused martial art. And lastly there's the shot below which physicalises Mary in the viewer's eyes, even if not in Joseph's, and seems without precedent in a historical nativity film (as far as I can remember, at least, the only Mary film that shows something even vaguely equivalent is Godard's modernisation Hail Mary (1985).        

The title of the film of course seems like a nod to Italy's most famous and successful Jesus adaptation, Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, 1964) by Pier Paolo Pasolini. There wasn't anything immediately obvious from the trailer that seemed like a nod to Pasolini's film, aside from perhaps a certain fixity of the camera, but it will be interesting to see what else emerges if/when I ever get to see the final film. The other film that comes to mind is Giovanni Columbu’s Sardinian Jesus film Su Re (The King, 2012). 

The more fantastical elements of the trailer certainly seem like a significant departure from both Pasolini's and Columbu's approaches to the subject, although perhaps not out of keeping with some of his other work such as Il Decamerone (1970). I suppose one key indicator of this is the brief appearance of an angel (below), shot in side profile. Pasolini's angel was played by a young woman (Rossana di Rocco) who wore a simple white dress, but here the angel is played by a young man who has wings. This is a particularly interesting detail (to me, at least) because di Rocco did appear in a later Pasolini film dressed as an gel with wings, but here the character was a human dressing up as an angel. There's a sense that for Pasolini angel's wings were theatrical 

I don't want to speculate too much about the trailer. As most of the film is not there and some shots in trailers are sometimes absent from the final cut of the movie. There have been a number of reviews of the film. I won't go into them all, but a couple of things that caught my attention were as follows:

1. At one point in Sky Italia's own review they say "Tra riferimenti a Enki e Enlil, dei della mitologia mesopotamica" (between references to Enki and Enlil gods from the Mesopotamian myth). This caught my attention because I've been writing about those same myths in my work looking at Noah (Darren Aronofsky, 2014)

2.  Lucia Tedesco at Lost in Cinema also mentions that not only is the film shot in Sardinia but also that bits of the dialogue are in Sardinian as well. There are also significant spoilers in her review. She has an generally positive review of the film, as does Hynerd's (Eleonora Matta)

3. Alessio Accardo at Close-up Italia mentions director of photography Simone D'arcangelo and his love of  Andrei Tarkovsky, particularly Andrei Rublev. Despite the film that this film is in colour (as opposed to Rublev's black and white) I can certainly see the connection with some of Tarkovsky's other films.

I have no idea how I will get to see this film at the moment. I guess I'm hoping it will get a DVD release in time for Christmas, or at least be released to streaming.

Il primo Natale (2019)[Once Upon a Time in Bethlehem]

In 2019 I had a chapter published on Nativity films. Last year I had a chapter published on Italian films, which was written and finalised in 2019. So naturally, right at the end of 2019, an Italian film was released about the Nativity which was reported to be Italy's highest grossing home grown film in for 2019. That film was Il primo Natale. It's taken me a couple of years to get hold of it and to find the time to review it, but now seemed like an appropriate time to finally rectify that (although I was originally hoping to post this before Christmas Day).

The film is the brainchild of Italian comedy duo Salvatore Ficarra and Valentino Picone, known as Ficarra and Picone, who wrote and directed the film as well as playing the lead roles of Salvo and Valentino respectively. The two are fairly well known in their native Italy, indeed a docu-series about them called Incastrati will be released on Netflix from 27th January. 

While the Italian title translates as The First Christmas it had a limited release in English-speaking regions under the snazzier title Once Upon a Time in Bethlehem, no doubt tugging its forelock towards Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and, of course, the original Once Upon a Time film Sergio Leone's spaghetti western C'era una volta il West, (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968). 

The film follows the not unfamiliar trope of modern-day people transported back in time to observe/take part in past events, which has formed the backbone of shows like Quantum Leap (1989-93) and Timeless (2016-18), as well as being the plot for various episodes of Doctor Who (1963-), though it's been a feature of moving pictures since at least 1913's An Unsullied Shield. Back in 1967 one such time-travel show Time Tunnel covered the story of Joshua in an episode called The Walls of Jericho so Il Primo Natale is hardly the first time someone thought of doing this with biblical stories. 

Indeed various child-focused animated Bible series have done this as well, including both versions of Superbook (1981 & 2011) and Hannah Barbera's The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible (1985). But the only feature films I can think of that even come close to adopting this approach to the Bible is Wholly Moses! (1980) – where Dudley Moore's character finds a scroll recounting an alternative history of Moses and is then Moore plays a leading character in the story itself – and Year One (2009) where the two cavemen encounter Bronze Age Sodom. Neither film makes an explicit claim of time travel.

Here Salvo is a thief specialising in religious art and Valentino is a Catholic priest. When Salvo steals a valuable baby Jesus figure from Valentino's church, he gives chase and the two are magically transported back to Bethlehem just days before Jesus is due to be born. Figuring that Mary is probably best placed to perform the kind of miracle they need to return home they attempt to try and track her and Joseph down. Naturally this proves less than straightforward and there are cases of mistaken identity; zealot plots; a one-eyed blacksmith; and time spent enjoying Herod's 'hospitality' all providing humorous scenarios. 

Some of these moments work better than others. There's a good scene early on where the pair mistakenly wash their faces with the water their hosts use to wash the dust off their feet. Humour doesn't always translate across language barriers, but this was just one of several moments that I found  myself laughing at, and the comic potential of Ficarra & Picone is evident throughout.

What I find particularly telling is that the pacing and plot of the film work fairly well. Aside from romantic comedies, many comic films rely to heavily on a single joke, struggle to get away from the pacing and story arc length of the TV series from which they derive, or feel too much like a series of sketches stretched out. One of the reasons I think Life of Brian (1979) is Monty Python's most successful film is because it feels like it's a film with a proper plot, narrative, character arcs and structure rather than a series of (admittedly hilarious) sketches. While Il primo Natale is certainly not of that calibre, it's hangs together as a film, though I think it has one too many endings.

Moreover it also manages to be genuinely moving in places. Ficarra and Picone have bags of charm and chemistry and their double act serves the film well and the script manages to avoid being overly cynical or overly sentimental towards its subject matter. It's respectful of Mary, Joseph and Jesus while picking apart some of the more questionable traditions that have sprung up around them. Here, for example Joseph is beardless, much to everyone's surprise. Moreover, the film even manages to bring in some contemporary relevance.

In honesty I tend to avoid most modern Christmas films. The comic ones don't fit my sense of humour: The romantic ones seem overly cloying, or manipulative (do not get me started on Love Actually). So while it's not particularly special, it certainly struck a chord with me. I can understand why Italian audiences went for it at the box office and I can well imagine watching it over future Christmas holidays. It's a decent enough, light-hearted consideration of the Nativity which doesn't trample down its subject matter in order to elevate itself. That's a difficult balance to strike so whilst it's not exactly a Christmas miracle, I hope it finds a wider audience.

Per amore solo per amore (1993)

Giovanni Veronesi's Per amore, solo per amore (For Love, Only for Love, 1993) is probably best known for featuring a young Penelope Cruz as the Virgin Mary. Yet Cruz is not the only actress to play Mary in the film as it starts while she is barely more than a toddler. This enables the film to focus more on Mary and Joseph than about Jesus, per se, whilst deftly avoiding the question of Mary's Immaculate Conception. Nevertheless, it is the film's portrayal of Joseph that has drawn accusations of blasphemy, though it hardly faced the degree of outrage that films such as Hail Mary (1985) and Last Temptation of Christ (1988) experienced.

Whilst Maria/Mary starts the film as a little girl, Giuseppe/Joseph is already in his thirties. It's often said that Mary was quite possibly only around thirteen at the time Jesus was conceived. In contrast, Roman Catholic tradition, seeking to uphold belief in Mary's perpetual virginity despite the Bible talking about Jesus's brothers and sisters, has often argued that before his betrothal to Mary, Joseph had already been married, fathered children and been widowed, making him already well into adulthood. Whilst the idea of a middle aged man marrying a thirteen year old seems uncomfortable to us, this has been culturally acceptable in many cultures over the centuries. Personally speaking that makes me uncomfortable enough, and by portraying much as significantly young still when she first meets and is, in some way attracted to Joseph only increases the unease.

The area of contention is more concerning Joseph's behaviour at the start of the film. When he encounters a thief, Socrates, stealing his water, he initially reacts threateningly, but then takes him in, and the two become life-long friends. Shortly afterwards, Joseph arrives in the village during a stoning, shot, initially, rather strikingly, with a point of view shot from the victim's perspective. In addition to linking with the story of Joseph's son preventing such a stoning later in his life, this device strongly places the viewer on the side of the victim, such that even though she dies, Joseph's attempts at intervention clearly marks him as on the same (moral) side as the audience.

Shortly afterwards, however, other aspects of Joseph character begin to be revealed. He instantly strikes up a friendship with the young Mary for example, but he also repeatedly visits a prostitute in the village and gets drunk, behaviour in sharp contrast with his traditional image of moral uprightness. Joseph's liberalism clashes with that of the local religious leader, Cleofa, who, in the clumsy assignment of modern categories has a more culturally conservative perspective. It is he who upholds the mob's right to stone an adulteress, yet he also opposes Joseph's behaviour. In an early twist (it's been 25+ years) it turns out that Cleofa is Mary's father, setting the stage nicely for changing attitudes as both men move more towards the positive middle ground between them..

These establishing scenes occupy the first third of the film, and the film then changes gear as the we leap forward in time and Cruz is introduced as Maria for the first time. It's has clearly been a while since they have seen each other and the wordless alternating point of view one-shots as they are reunited suggest the two simultaneously falling for each other at 'first' sight. There's a lengthy working-out of these feelings however including, Joseph chasing through back streets just to catch another glimpse of Mary, an unusual communal gathering that seems part way between a speed-dating event and a meat market and Joseph wrestling with another would-be suitor of Mary's until he passes out. Eventually, though Joseph makes a big romantic proposal, she accepts, and then he and Mary's father come to an agreement over her dowry

But then Mary leaves town suddenly and unexpectedly. Because this film is from Joseph's point of view both he and the audience are left in the dark. It gradually occurs to us what has happened because we know the story, but Joseph knows nothing until Mary's father arrives at Joseph's house one night to return the bride-price. Joseph is distraught. What's interesting that we never see the annunciation, with or without an angel, but neither does anyone seem to blame Joseph for the pregnancy (though I might have missed something in the Italian). Eventually, after Joseph decides to continue with the marriage Mary tells him about the message from the angel, but we only experience it as he does. We the audience have to take her word for it just as he does. Just as he's getting used to that he find out that they will also not be consummating the marriage. This is also worked out very much of his point of view. We witness his desire for his wife, and him struggling to come to terms with that. More drunkenness.

By the time it comes to the biblical part of the story in the final third, the film has reconciled itself to a more conventional ending. Nevertheless, there are a few interesting flourishes. For a start, Socrates accompanies Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. There's also a moment when the three of them encounter crucifixions on the road to Bethlehem, with people stoning those on the crosses. This pairs with the earlier stoning scene and of course the future crucifixion of Mary and Joseph's son and perhaps highlights the link between the people attempting to stone women also being complicit in Jesus's death at the hands of the Romans.

Another unusual touch is the location for the birth, which takes place under a natural shelter/open cave rather than in a more 'conventional' stable. In particular it's notable that there is no visits from shepherds or wise men, but a sizeable crowd do arrive to gaze at the new baby. And then the family move on with the film mainly having finished.

First, however, there's a final epilogue, which the film changes to eight years later (from the twelve in P.F.Campanile's source novel). Mary and Joseph and his old friend Socrates are reunited just as Joseph's life is coming to an end. There's a final conversation between the two men, most of which was lost on me, but what is significant is that we see, more or less simultaneously, Socrates washing Jesus' feet, and Mary's feet being washed by her, now, eight year old son. I think there's perhaps an implication here that whilst Joseph has not witnessed angels as Mary has, that nevertheless his own silent guardian (God-figure?) has been with him all along. Certainly this explains how it is that Socrates provides the film's voice over, even though he loses the power of speech very early in the film.

It's frustrating for me that my listening skills in Italian are still rather poor because I'm fairly sure there is plenty that I am missing. What's clear however is that the film attempts to go beyond the rather limited character of Joseph we find in the Gospels (where he is not much more than a re-embodiment of his dream-responsive, Old Testament namesake) and indeed the saint of church tradition. Whilst some will object to the more unholy elements of that portrayal it's nevertheless an interesting attempt to meld some of the things we do know about that culture with modern notions of love, morality and faithfulness. It avoids being twee without feeling the need to be gritty and there are some nice shots of the Tunisian desert which make the most of the advantages of the widescreen aspect ratio.

A Child Called Jesus (1987)

To those of us used to modern biographies, the paucity of information about the first thirty or so years of Jesus' life seems rather strange. Only half the gospels even mention his birth, and only one mentions any incident that happens to him between infancy and the start of his ministry. At least some of our ancestors shared our bemusement at this. Additional, non-canonical writings spring up in the following centuries such as The Infancy Gospel of Thomas or the Protevangelium of James which different parts of the church treat with varying level of respect or scepticism.

It's proved a more fertile subject for recent artists too. In the US, 2016's The Young Messiah was itself an adaptation of Anne Rice's earlier "Christ the Lord" series of novels, whilst other films such as Jesus (1999) and La sacra famiglia (The Holy Family, 2006) have also sought to fill some of these puzzling silences.

Perhaps the most significant of the 'recent' films to explore this period in Jesus' life is the 1987 mini-series A Child Called Jesus (Un bambino nome Gesù). An Italian and American co-production it follows a common practice of dubbing sound back onto the visual footage back in the studio, meaning the American version was dubbed, and not particularly brilliantly. It makes it hard to find a version in better (but still not perfectly) dubbed Italian with subtitles.

The film starts dramatically in Bethlehem, moments before Herod's soldiers arrive. The film's first words are literally Joseph being told to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt, and in following scene we see an almost distressing pallid Herod being dipped into and out of a huge bath of Arabian mud, fearing the prophecy from Micah 5:2 about a ruler coming from Bethlehem, despite the slaughter he has carried out seeking to prevent it.

There's a jump forward seven years, but whereas Young Messiah chose around this time to send Jesus and his parents back from Egypt to Galilee, here we find that they have not yet even properly reached Egypt yet, instead they have built a new life in a town on the border between Egypt and what a subtitle calls "Palestine". Director Franco Rossi (who also directed RAI's version of Quo Vadis? two years earlier) captures the uneasy feel of a border town, not least in a scene where a rebel zealot seems to be grooming child soldiers to fight the Romans).

The comparatively safe life Jesus' family have found there though is about to come to an end, however. Unfortunately a fictional character called Sefir (though he sometimes calls himself Nathan Ben Joab) is pleased to have finally tracked them down. Sefir, who is played by Pierre Clémenti, who once had the role of Jesus himself in Philippe Garrel's Le lit de la Vierge (The Virgin's Bed, 1969), claims variously to be Syrian, or from Qumran, or perhaps to have been one of the original battalion of soldiers that Herod dispatched to Bethlehem.

Whatever his origins, he is determined to catch up with Jesus and his parents and finish what he started 7 years ago. Firstly he builds an alliance with a Roman commander called Titus Rufus. Then he employs a killer called Chela, who turns up dead when his attempt to bury Jesus under an avalanche of rock fails. Jesus, it is implied, only survives because of his mother's desperate prayers for him. Sefir tries to blame Joseph, but I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that this isn't true. For Joseph this is the clear sign of the need for decisive action. Despite recently accepting a lucrative contract making some benches for the local synagogue, he decides to take his family properly into Egypt, to Alexandria.

It's around this point that we begin to see the first of a number of surprising flashes forward to events during Jesus' ministry. Though it's a little unclear at first as to what exactly Jesus is witnessing these echoes from the future, it gradually that he is experiencing these visions, even if he doesn't know that he himself is the character appearing in them. The first time it's Jesus' question to the disciples "Who do you say that I am"?, but later we will get flashes of his healing Jairus' daughter, the miraculous catch of fish, the Wedding at Cana, Gethsemane and finally his burial. There are also a few indications that some of his later teaching imagery was picked up during his childhood (when a shepherd tells him of his willingness to leave the 99 sheep to find the lost one, for example).

The other element of Jesus ministry that is foreshadowed here is his supposed rejection of some of the established areas of Jewish practice. At one point surprised at the complexities of lighting a lamp in the correct way he says "If lighting a lamp is complicated it would be easier if people would sit under the moon". Shortly afterwards we see him sizing up a money-changer, as if already wise to the possibility that he might be shortchanging his customers. Most strikingly, when Joseph suggests buying a dove to sacrifice in the temple Jesus objects, saying "but doesn't Almighty God prefer to hear his birds alive, greeting the morning?" What's clear is that Jesus is a strongly opinionated child, who, at least initially, his mother is finds a little troublesome. Gradually through the course of the film she stops chiding him and starts listening and respecting him.

Much of this could be seen as anti-Judaism, yet the film is very clear about Jesus' Jewishness. As well as constantly showing Jesus, Joseph and Mary in and out of synagogues and temples, essential connections between his family and the other Jews are made in every community they encounter. At one point we see a Jewish religious meeting and witness a reading of the Ecclesiastes 3 passage about the passing of time. Particularly surprising is the scenes where the Holy Family join in with the Feast of the Tabernacles.

In addition to portraying various Jewish rituals, it also evokes some early Christian, but not biblical, texts as well, most notably an incident found in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas where Jesus creates a bird out of the clay. It's not Jesus' only miracle, however, in another scene, towards the end of the film where Jesus himself is just starting to become aware of his powers, we see him heal a female leper. There's even a suggestion that after Jesus and Mary have been separated from Joseph, after he is thought to have been killed in a fire, that Jesus is involved in reuniting them.

If the dubbing is the worst element of the film then its visuals are certainly the best, even on the somewhat blurry/grainy copy on DVD. Rossi's camera frames the natural beauty of the locations beautifully, even in its native narrowscreen. It helps of course using some of the same locations as Rossellini used in Il Messia (1975).

Whilst his interiors are a little less striking there are still some nice looking shots, not least the views of the desert and the film's stunning visual climax. But Rossi also utilises several nice motifs such as using background objects to create halos at various points. Another of his motifs is framing eyes behind/through wooden lattices. This device is used several times, especially of Mary. It's something that could be interpreted almost romantically, an observation my friend Peter Chattaway makes regarding similar framing in The Passion of the Christ (2004).

However, it's notable that eyes are mentioned a few other times as well. One particularly notable incident hears one of the adults asks Jesus not to look at him with his "puppy dog eyes". In some ways I can't help but wonder if this is a retort to another Italian Jesus-film-maker called Franco. Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth (1977) was famous for Robert Powell's azure, unblinking eyes. Here Rossi voices the concern that eyes can have influential power, though it also enables those feeling its pull to escape them. Perhaps most significant, given the prevalence of eyes in this film are the only words I recall the boy Jesus speaking that are recognisable from the Gospels. Towards the end of the film, Jesus speaks from Matt 6:22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light".

Ultimately, of course, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are all united and end up back in Nazareth. That's not so much a spoiler as to say simply that whilst the film is almost entirely invention, it does not contradict the specific things the Bible does say about Jesus' childhood. Jesus and his family return home with plenty of time before Jesus gets lost in Jerusalem. It must have been tempting to include that story in this film, but it's to the film's credit that it has strong enough convictions about what it is trying to do that it avoids it. It's perhaps a little overlong and you have to put up with the dubbing, but it poses some interesting questions and serves up some great images as well.

Io sono con te (Let It Be, 2010)

In contrast to films such as the BBC's The Nativity, which uses a romance between Mary and Joseph to drive the plot, Guido Chiesa's Io sono con te (which literally means 'I am with you') is possibly the first feature length Nativity film which chooses not depict the holy couple as in love. There is affection and respect, but ultimately this is not so much their story, as her story.

 In part this is because Joseph is so much older than Mary. Mary is played by a 15 year old Tunisian actor Nadia Khlifi who looks even younger which would make any kind of romantic attachment rather uncomfortable for modern viewers. Whilst "there's nothing ethereal or other worldly (or even conventionally beautiful) about her", (Haven 2011) Khlifi manages to exude an unusual mix of vulnerability and strength, often defying the patriarchy that dominates her village.

This patriarchy is very much a defining part of the village's life which is portrayed here in ways radically different from the traditional biblical epic. For one thing all the characters in this film look they, like Khlifi, might have roots in the Middle East. The film was shot in Tunisia - parts of it on the very sets that Roberto Rossellini used for his Jesus film Il Messia (The Messiah, 1975) - and the majority of the cast and extras were chosen from the region. This has been an increasing trend in recent biblical films. As Peter Chattaway, writing about the choice of Keisha Castle-Hughes as Mary in The Nativity Story (2006), observes

"Gone are the days when blue-eyed, blonde-haired actors and actresses could pass themselves off as the Jewish Messiah or his immediate friends and family. Audiences expect more “authenticity” these days, and filmmakers eager to promote their films as something new and different are more than willing to provide it. 

Even Mel Gibson, who faced a firestorm of controversy over allegedly anti-Semitic elements in The Passion of the Christ, made a point of altering the appearance of actor James Caviezel (through make-up, and by digitally turning his eyes from blue to brown) in order to make his Jesus look more Jewish."

Since then the trend has only accentuated with Jesus recently having been portrayed by Lebanese actor Haaz Sleiman in Killing Jesus (2015), half-Tamil Selva Rasalingam in The Gospel of Mark (2016) and Israeli actor Aviv Alush in The Shack (2017).¹

But as well as the actors' ethnicity being worthy of note, their costumes and the manner in which their way of life is portrayed is similar significant. Gone is the pale blue linen wraps so beloved of screen Marys. Here she wears various long, brightly-coloured, striped woollen kaftan-type garments. Almost all characters have their heads covered most of the time, Joseph, for example wears a tallit for a great deal of the film.

It is Mary’s strength, particularly with respect to her strong sense of morality, that is very much one of the key themes that this film is exploring. It’s hardly surprising, then that the film has been praised for its feminist credentials. However, an independently minded Mary is hardly original in and of itself. The same could be said of Keisha Castles-Hughes in The Nativity Story (2006). What makes Io sono so notable in this respect is that rather her defiance being against her parenting, or those who question her purity, here the film pits her against numerous aspects of both the Jewish religion and a wider Middle Eastern culture. In particular the practice of circumcision comes in for heavy criticism, most memorably in a scene where another baby is circumcised. The scene consists of a fast montage where, in a similar fashion to Un Chien Andalou (1929) and Psycho (1960) numerous short shots are spliced together to create the impression that you see an incision, whereas in fact yo do not. Io sono both borrows this technique, but also draws on it’s heritage reflecting the horror that Mary feels at the practice. It is not insiginifcant that Chiesa's website contains a link to the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centres.

As far as the film is concerned, Mary's strong sense of morality means that Jesus is uncircumcised. That could be taken as pre-figuring the way Jesus' followers would soon remove the requirement to be circumcised from their newly founded religion. Yet at the same time as appreciating the point that Chiesa seems to be trying to make about the inappropriateness of the practice in the modern world, I'm also a little troubled by him portraying a non-circumcised saviour. Jewish-Christian history is littered with examples of the terrible consequences that have occurred when Christians have overlooked some of the markers of Jesus' Jewish identity and circumcision is undoubtedly a key one of those. At the same time, the film does such a lot to emphasise Jesus' Jewishness, from the mezuzah on most of the characters door posts, to the head coverings, portrayals of the synagogue, actors ethnicity, scriptures cited and, actually, the intra-religious discussion about the finer points of the law. Which is to say portraying an uncircumcised Jesus might be a problem were it not for the fact that few, if any, films come close to Io sono in their portrayal of Jesus as a Jew.

That aside, circumcision is just one of the many bloody acts that Mary is appalled by. The spectacle of animal sacrifice circles her throughout the film with numerous appearances of sheep and goats punctuating the film. Indeed even the annunciation, such as it is, takes place whilst Mary is milking goats. Later she witnesses one giving birth and others being slaughtered in the temple. Numerous other images of animals with such Girardian overtones appear throughout the film. Little wonder then that the words of Hosea, “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (later repeated by Jesus), are amongst those that Mary draws upon during the film.

The film also shows Mary refusing to partake in the political violence portrayed by the film, be it the Romans/Herod's soldiers strong arming the local populace, or Jewish rebels seeking to avenge it. When the rebels begin to try and gain support Mary leads her family, and particularly Joseph's other son, away.

But Mary does not just stand against physical acts of violence. One of the key rules that Mary disregards entirely is an apparent taboo on feeding new-borns their mother's milk for the first few days of their lives. This rule, which is not found in the Bible emphasises that the form of Judaism that Mary, and by extension, the filmmakers, find objectionable is an unorthodox variety, suggesting that not all forms of Judaism should be treated in the same fashion.

Mary, and later Jesus, are also appalled by the ostracisation of a man called Hillel (whose liberal historical namesake is best known for coining the "golden rule"). For reasons that are never made clear, Hillel is permanently considered unclean and forced to live so far away from the village that he cannot walk to the synagogue on the Sabbath without breaking. Initially Mary and eventually Jesus refuse to conform and visit Hillel at his house, eventually encouraging him to attend the synagogue. Jesus objects when he is told to leave, but only succeeds in convincing the rabbi to change the reason that Hillel has to leave. It's another indicator of the strict purity rules that exist in the fictional Mary's village and of which the majority would have confronted the historical Mary and Jesus as well. And again it's the kind of scape-goating that is very familiar to those that know Girard's work.

The fact that Chiesa's film is an exploration of Girard's philosophy is something that the director confirmed in an email to Girard scholar Cynthia Haven, a section of which she included in her review of the film:

"René Girard‘ s work was a great source of inspiration for our project and it helped us a great deal during the writing of the script and the understanding of several Biblical passages about Mary and Jesus’ s childhood" (Haven)

If biblical epics are a vehicle for big themes and concerns, then Girard's unending cycle of violence is hard to top.

Even more interestingly than this, is the way the film seems to want to extend this revulsion at this form of Judaism beyond its characters to its audience. The final part of the film concerns the period when Jesus is twelve. The circle of life has completed another revolution; Jesus is now the age as his mother was at the beginning of the film. He sits there and listens to one of the religious leaders recounting the time Moses commanded a man to be stoned to death for collecting wood on the Sabbath. To modern ears it is an horrific story that rightly belongs to the distant past. Here it is presented without bias, comment or reaction. It would be there for the viewers to make up their minds, except, for the fact that shorn of its original context, no modern viewer could find it acceptable.

But of course, in Jesus' day this was still the law and the story's presence here is a jarring reminder of the context into which Jesus and Mary came. Typically, biblical films transport us into a world that purports to be the past, but really resembles our own far more than it ought to, what Sobceck describes as the "projection of ourselves-now as we-then". (Sobcheck, 284) Here, however, and throughout the film, Chiesa has given us an emotive reminder of how very different the past was from our own time.

1 - This is for New Testament films made by westerners. Clearly films such as the Iranian films Saint Mary (1997) and Jesus, the Spirit of God (2007) have been employing Middle Eastern actors for some time.

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Chattaway, Peter T. (2006), "Ethnicity in Jesus Films: Does it Matter?" FilmChat, 24 November 2006. Available online - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/filmchat/2006/11/ethnicity-in-jesus-films-does-it-matter.html Accessed 3 July 2017.

Chiesa, Guido (2010), Io Sono con Te: La Storia Della Ragazza Che ha Cambiato del Mondo. Magda Film, Colorado Film RAI Cinema. Available Online - http://guidochiesa.net/media/opera/nicoletta-micheli-filippo-kalomenidis-e-guido-chiesa/io-sono-con-te/pressbook.pdf Accessed 2 July 2017.

Haven, Cynthia (2011), "Io Sono Con Te: A film with a René Girard p.o.v.", 21 February 2011. Book Haven. Avaliable Online - http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2011/02/io-sono-con-te-a-film-with-a-rene-girard-p-o-v/ Accessed 2 July 2017

Sobchack, Vivian (1995), '"Surge and Splendour": A Phenomology of the Hollywood Historical Epic', in Grant, Barry Keith, Film Genre Reader II, 280-307, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

La Sacra Famiglia (2006)The Holy Family: Jesus, Mary and Joseph

At 159 minutes long Raffaele Mertes' La Sacra Famiglia (2006) is one of the longest films primarily about the birth and childhood of Jesus, but, surprisingly it's the least "epic" of all of those I have looked at recently.

It's actually Mertes' second film about the birth/childhood of Jesus, the first being Joseph of Nazareth from six years earlier. Indeed Mertes has become one of the most prolific Bible film producers having also directed Esther(1999), Mary Magdalene (2000), The Apocalypse (2000), Thomas (2001) and Judas (2001). Mertes' seventh and, at the time of writing, final Biblical tele-visual film is one of his better ones however, most notably in the first half whilst the story is still able to stick relativity closely to the gospel accounts.

The story starts in the period immediately before Mary and Joseph's betrothal. In contrast to almost every Jesus film that covers the subject Mary hails not from Nazareth, but from Jerusalem. She has been orphaned before the start of the film and, in an interesting interpretation, now lives with her aunt and uncle Elizabeth and Zechariah. She's adventurous and fun-loving as a scene where she fashions bed sheets into a rope in order to escape from her room, but also capable of being serious and strong-willed ("I am the one who decides who I will marry").

Not dissimilarly Joseph also plays against the traditional portrait, at least the one that we find in cinema. Rather than having long had feelings for Mary (and having to bide his time until she, euugh, reached the already rather young marriageable age), he is a widower, himself also something of a rebellious character, who gets chosen to be Mary's husband when a nearby almond tree spontaneously bursts into bloom. It's one of a number of miracles in the film, all of which are handled in a low-key fashion. This is a strong contrast with traditional biblical epics when miracles are typically accompanied by swelling, reverential music. Joseph takes some convincing that anything out of the ordinary has occurred. After all he was only a visitor in Jerusalem, heading home to Nazareth.

This leads onto another are in which La Sacra Famiglia differs from the traditional biblical epics, its lack of self-seriousness. Again, it's noticeable right from the early scenes that Joseph is often a source of mild comic relief, notably when his donkey refuses to behave as he wants it to. There's something of Au Hasard Balthasar here, with the donkey as a divine agent who honks just in time to prevent Mary and Joseph kissing in an early scene, and kicks Joseph to prevent him from leaving Mary later on. The donkey is a divine fool, acting for God yet nevertheless providing comic relief. This contrasts with the approach of the classic epics where the aesthetic only works if everyone keeps a straight face (even if they give the impression they might have been a lot of fun to make).

Mary and Joseph's arrival back in Nazareth causes something of a stir. Like Mertes' Joseph of Nazareth Joseph has children from his previous marriage (in line with Catholic and Orthodox theology rather than Protestant). These have grown up to the age whereby they are far closer to Mary's age than is their father, and her fiancé. Indeed James also seems to be attracted to Mary and while his dad seems a little unsure about about marrying her, James shows far less reticence. Joseph is a little thrown by this but Mary's strength of character comes through again. "I must follow God's will, not James's. I'm promised to you". Joseph concerns ("I'm old enough to be your father.") are soon alleviated.

In addition to Joseph's sons, James and Judas, we're also introduced to other members of the family, such as Joseph's daughter Sarah, his brother Cleopas (and, of course Mary's uncle, who we met in the almond-tree scene above, is Zechariah the priest). There's a real suggestion, then, that most of those associated with following Jesus during his lifetime were members of his own family.

Things are complicated further when Joseph has to head away for work for a few months. Joseph has noted something going on between James and Mary, and so he leaves Judas in charge. It's during this prolonged absence that Mary has a vision from God by which she understands that she is to give birth. Interestingly whereas one of the characteristics of many epics is the audible voice of God, here the message is conveyed silently so that only Mary hears it and using techniques such as slow-motion and hand-held camerawork which tend to feauture in epics only during battle scenes. When Joseph returns he is naturally dismayed, but quickly realises he loves Mary and decides without apparent divine intervention (aside from his donkey) that he should stay with her.

The film adopts a more traditional approach for the remainder of part one, Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem, find a stable and host unusual visitors. The most notable moment here is when Joseph rushes off to find the village mid-wife - the only time I can recall the use of an unknown midwife in amongst all the birth of Jesus films I have seen.

The second half of the film never quite matches the strengths of the first. As Catherine O'Brien observes "efforts to depict the childhood of Jesus are fraught with danger". (2016: 456) Not only does the audience know Jesus' survival is assured, but once Herod dies there is no real antagonist (save perhaps a sulky James, and some immigrant hating Egyptians) and rather than re-working a familiar and cherished tale, as with the first part of the film, the second half is largely what was created by the screenwriter.

Nevertheless, La Sacra Famiglia is one of the better dramatisations of the birth and childhood of Jesus. Certainly the first half, which can stand by itself, will get repeat viewings around Christmas time in years to come.
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Cammina, Cammina (Keep Walking - 1982)

Having received a copy of Ermanno Olmi's Cammina, Cammina for Christmas, I thought it would be good to review it on the traditional, but increasingly forgotten, Twelfth Day of Christmas – Epiphany.

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There have been relatively few films made about the nativity, and nearly all of those that have been made tell the story from the perspective of Mary and Joseph. Cammina, Cammina is in many ways the perfect Epiphany movie as it moves Mary and Joseph to the sidelines, and focuses instead on the longer and even more perilous journey made by the wise men. In doing so it is able to examine the nativity story in general as well as the idea of pilgrimage with far more depth. Its flawed and ordinary protagonists make the piece far less deferential than most of the standard treatments of the story.

Indeed ideas of journey and pilgrimage are so dominant that film has run for two hours before any of Matthew's story is covered. Were someone without a TV guide to stumble across this film one night just after it began, they could watch for around two-thirds of the film without knowing which story it was portraying. Unusually, that might actually be the best way to view the film. It would certainly give the viewer a greater affinity with the film's protagonists – unsure of what they let themselves in for and ultimately arriving at a nativity scene that is so incredibly low key that it is something of an anti-climax.


Certainly the pilgrims are unsure what to make of what they discover. Olmi manages to create an atmosphere which definitely suggests that something special has occurred, yet at the same time it appears utterly unremarkable. The desperate poverty of the holy couple, and their lowly stable is somewhat tempered by the poverty of the pilgrims themselves.

In the Bible, Luke's account of the shepherds visiting Jesus comes complete with a full angelic visitation. Matthew's account of the magi is far sparser (vivid dreams aside), and Olmi visualises this perfectly. The people find what they have travelled to find, and yet, when they do, they are uncertain about what exactly they have found. Ultimately, they accept that they have found what they were searching for, simply because all the clues they have had seem to point that way. But they are more than a little unsure that it all adds up. Released just three short years after Life of Brian which began with three over eager magi barging into the wrong stable, Cammina, Cammina shows us the other side of the same coin, albeit it in a more reserved fashion.


Traditionally, of course, this unspecified number of magi, has been pictured as three wise men, or even kings. Olmi sticks with this tradition, deftly combining the wise men / kings traditions by portraying Jesus's visitors as wise men who are represent their respective kings. They even wear crowns on more formal occasions as a sign that they carry their kings' authority. Moreover, these three travellers are each accompanied by a sizeable entourage. Some have come because they have little choice in the matter, others because they have seen the star and want to meet the person who it honours.

This is quite a different portrayal than the recent movie The Nativity Story. There the magi, who are largely present for comic relief, travel alone, and are friends and colleagues long before they see the star. In contrast, this film depicts the magi as meeting up for the first time relatively late on in the film, having solely followed Mel(chior) and his party for the first couple of hours. This enables the character of Mel to be put under the microscope and fleshed out, and it is this that gives the film much of its interest. We are in his presence long enough to get a really good understanding of his character, his passion, his devotion, the things that make him tick, his strengths and flaws. Mel is a man deeply routed in the Jewish tradition, frequently breaking out into a citation from the Hebrew bible. He is so well respected by his people, that many of them follow him when he announces that he is going to find the king who is represented by this new star.

At the same time he also has his flaws. Despite being so immersed in the scriptures he is stuck for ideas when the caravan fails to find the new born king in Jerusalem. It is one of the younger women who suggest going to "Bethlehem". He is deeply disappointed by the scene he finds there. Whilst he is sharp enough to spot that soldiers might attack the village, and warns the other magi, he fails to tell Mary and Joseph. Later on, one of his followers hands a stinging rebuke both for not staying to defend them, and for hanging on to part of an offering that the people had taken earlier.

As the film ends it grows more and more deeply ambiguous. It is unclear whether or not Mel did the right thing. It is perhaps unlikely his people could have defended themselves against the soldiers, yet the closing scenes, which show the adults of Bethlehem lying murdered as well as the infants, is, nevertheless, fairly damning. Unlike most versions of the nativity we do not even know for certain that the new family has escaped. In fact given that the village is never named, it is not even certain that this is Mary and Joseph. Strangely the only quote from one of the gospels is from the Gospel of Thomas. ("Lift a stone and you will find me, divide a log and I will be there")


The film ends with Mel's party arriving back, joyously, at their home town. The brevity with which the return journey is dealt with is in stark contrast with the lengthy portrayal of the outward journey. As noted above this forms this body of the film. Whilst initially the events that occur on the way appear quite random, in fact, they all reflect various stories related to Jesus.

So we see a shepherd lead his sheep through the camp (the Good Shepherd). We see a wedding party (reminiscent both of parables about wedding feasts, and of John's metaphor for the church – the bride of Christ). We see his followers drift off the path or land on rocky ground like the seed in the parable of the sower. We see a rich man who has brought all his belongings with him, and is unwilling to risk them to see Jesus. Finally we see those unable to follow the narrow way. On top of this the images of the people trailing after their leader through the desert is strongly reminiscent of Moses and the people of Israel.

Hence whilst the film portrays the pilgrimage of Mel and those that follow him to their destination, their journey reflects the challenges all believers face on their own, spiritual journeys.