Film Friday – Good Friday
The occasion of Good Friday gives me the opportunity to write about one of my favorite Jesus movies, Denys Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal. Although it was made in 1989, the film speaks to a very timely issue: the way that many of our young people are fleeing the church.
Jesus of Montreal is about modern day actors staging the Passion. Initially they work under the auspices of the local Catholic church, but in their very realistic presentation they begin arriving at some interpretations which clash with the Church position. At that point the authorities withdraw their support and try to put a halt to the proceedings. The result is a modern day version of the crucifixion and resurrection. (I won’t spoil the film by telling you what happens.)
The film is very smart in how it finds modern-day equivalents for many of the episodes from the Gospels. For Jesus and the moneylenders, we see the actor playing Jesus attacking commercial advertisers degrading a woman’s body (a Mary Magdalene figure). For the temptation in the desert, a Satanic producer offers the small avant garde theater wealth and fame if they sign with him.
Although the production finds ways to bring the gospel to people in ways that are fresh, the church proves inflexible. This, unfortunately, is how far too many of my students see establishment churches these days. They fail to hear Jesus’s words of love amidst all the shouting from politicized religious figures and religion-spouting politicians. “I’m spiritual but not religious,” many of them say. I’ve never seen them so alienated.
The film begins with a choir singing in a beautiful church and ends with a couple of religious musicians playing in a subway stop. Christ’s true messengers have always had to find their way back to the streets in order to communicate the power of his words. Jesus of Montreal helps get the word out.
