Big questions about faith: what to watch this Easter weekend

It’s Easter and there’s no better reminder of the hold that Christianity still has on the country than walking the empty streets of a major city on Good Friday. If you are of the religious persuasion then perhaps this selection of films — all tangentially related to the subject of Jesus —  is not for you. For more atheist, agnostic, receptive or even doubt-plagued viewers who don’t mind varying levels of sacrilege in their cinematic recommendations, here are three films that offer three very different perspectives on the greatest story ever told, and the broader questions that it raises about faith, hypocrisy, humanity and religion in general.

The Arthouse Essential:

Jesus of Montreal — YouTube

The smartest film ever made about JC, Quebecois filmmaker Denys Arcand’s 1989 satire of morals, the hypocrisy of religious dogma and the evils of media manipulation, crass commercialism and cold-hearted bureaucracy remains as provocative and relevant as it ever was.

Lothaire Bluteau stars as Daniel, a down-on-his-luck and unknown actor who is hired by a church to produce a revival of the Passion Play for a new, younger and hipper audience. Taking his job seriously, Daniel goes above and beyond for the assignment, creating a smart, modern take on the story of the messiah that’s both critically and commercially successful. However, his church bosses are more than a little concerned by some of his tweaks.

When they demand he make changes, Daniel refuses to compromise and finds himself in a role as outcast and martyr that increasingly plays to his narcissistic belief that he has become a modern-day version of Jesus who is being persecuted by an unjust and tone-deaf society for the radicalism of his views.

Arcand slyly poses a fundamental challenge to the modern organisation of the church with his angry and passionate argument that were Jesus to appear today, his radical ideas would be unacceptable to the church that claims to uphold his teachings. That may seem like a deep, dull theological debate but Arcand’s talents as a clear-headed modern fabulist enable him to wrap it within an overall story that’s entertaining, surprising and engaging.

It’s a clever, darkly funny and ultimately emotionally hefty critique of the shallow materialism that’s enveloped all sections of modern society in a chokehold of self-interested ignorance.

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The Stone Cold Classic:

The Last Temptation of Christ — Rent or buy from Apple TV +

Banned in SA and protested against in Catholic countries around the world upon its release in 1988, Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of the speculative historical novel by Nikos Kazantzakis’ stands the test of time as a misunderstood and definitely far from blasphemous alternative version of the Christ story.

What everyone tended to conveniently forget at the time is that Scorsese was and has always been a conflicted, but ultimately still committed, Catholic whose own battles with questions of faith have served as the basis for some of his most memorable films be they gangster dramas, period romances or this actual religious epic.

Willem Dafoe is excellent as Jesus and for the better part of the film’s 163 minute running time, the story that is told follows the familiar contours of that of the gospels, although its thematic concern, which is faithful to the novel, is his inner struggle to reconcile his divine destiny with his human desires. He’s brilliantly supported by some excellent casting choices including Harvey Keitel as Judas and David Bowie in the role of Pontius Pilate, as well as bravado emotional camerawork from German master Michael Balhaus, an evocative score by Peter Gabriel and effective and believable recreation of the look and feel of life in the biblical era.

The controversy around the film rests on its final 40 minutes in which Scorsese faithfully presents Kazantzakis’ alternative vision for what may have happened to Christ, were he to have given into his human wants over the demands that were made from him by God, and here the film makes its eternally provocative and memorable point. Though it may now seem tame and hard to see what all the fuss was about, it remains an intelligent and provocative film whose big questions about faith and its demands still thud in the hearts and souls of true believers.

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The Diamond in the Rough:

Monty Python’s Life of Brian — Rent or buy from Apple TV +

Malcolm Muggeridge, a plethora of Archbishops and Middle England twisted themselves into apoplectic knots of outrage back in 1979 when the Python’s unleashed their particular talents for absurd humour, bad taste and anarchic irreverence on the gospels.

The idea that the story of the messiah could be reduced to a series of slapstick, English schoolboy jokes about a hapless nice Jewish boy named Brian Cohen who, through a series of unfortunate events, finds himself mistaken for Jesus was blasphemous to the ears of the faithful, long before any of them actually deigned to actually set their offended eyes on the final product.

History has however, been the greatest test and by that measure Life of Brian still stands up not only as an evergreen hilarious comic classic that demolishes the stubborn blindness of many religious attitudes across all faiths but perhaps, more surprisingly, as a gentle but firm plea for greater tolerance of all people, no matter their religious beliefs.

It’s also the most fully realised and narratively satisfying extension of the sketch genius of the Pythons as an ensemble and reminds us that the freedom to poke some sticks into the glaring holes that characterise so many shibboleths is one that’s become dangerously scarce and overly policed in the decades since.

If you can’t laugh you’ll cry, and if you can’t manage to always — or at least generally — look on the bright side of life, then what’s the point really?

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