Matthæusevangeliet
When it
comes to movie versions of religious texts a lot of the usual criteria for
evaluating a movie become invalid. A religious topic, especially if it is THE
religious texts that are being used cannot really be rated as a good or a bad
story. If you are religious, you would rate it according to how well it matches
your religious believes. If you are not religious such a story would be so far
outside your version of reality that you are not in a position to rate it.
This is how
I feel about “The Gospel According to Saint Matthew” (“Il vangelo secondo
Matteo”) by Pier Paolo Pasolini. I very much belong to the second group and
whether this is a good rendition of the gospels I will leave to religious people.
What I can
say is that Pasolini here went, as far as I can see, for a very literal
presentation of the life and death of Jesus. There are hardly any surprises, it
is all taken from the text. Even the lines seem to be direct biblical quotes.
Something that at times sounds very odd as those lines do not work particular
well in a normal dialogue. Many scenes are set up particularly so specific
lines can be spoken rather than to serve any progressive story. This means that
the slavic adherence to the text makes the movie lumber along rather erratically.
I have not
watched many religious movies, but of the few I have seen those that work the best
are usually those that take their own spin on the story, have a certain angle
or dramatize events. Pasolini however seems content to just visualize the story
and so there are absolutely no surprises or originality here.
Where this
version is supposed to stand out is in Pasolini’s application of Italian
neorealism to the telling of the story with his use amateur actors and natural
locations. At least this is how Wikipedia describes it. I have a hard time seeing
that. There is very little that seem natural here. Indeed there is a staged
feel to the production that is anything but natural. Characters are not fleshed
out and there is absolutely no spontaneity in the dialogue. If this is realism
then something has happened since Rossellini.
Then again,
if you are really into the religious text you would probably appreciate this
strict adherence to the scriptures. It is a particular quality for this type of
movie.
I doubt
that I have to recount the story itself. It starts with the impregnation of the
Virgin Maria and ends with the Resurrection of Christ. Everything in between is
well known.
The film
was filmed in Calabria in Italy and as I actually live in Israel right now I
can see where these look like the real locations and where they decidedly do
not. I suppose for the average viewer the match is good enough, but I find it a
bit comical at times.
Pier Paolo
Pasolini has a reputation of being an avantgarde director with many inaccessible
or outright disgusting movies under his belt. My own experience with his movies
is very limited, but I find odd that the director of “120 days of Sodom” should
also have made this very conventional movie about the life of Jesus. I must say
that I expected something else.
On an
entirely different note, it is now official that my family and I are moving
back to Denmark in July after six years in Israel. We are going to live in
Copenhagen and the next month and a half is going to be pretty chaotic. My
posting frequency will likely reach an all-time low in this period, but once
established in our new apartment I hope to get back to normal speed.
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