Calvary
Eventually the steward
stops talking and the service begins. You pick up your popcorn because in this
blog we can change from church to cinema as instantly as an onscreen scene change and
munch your way through the sermon.
I've never been a big
fan of religious epics, the type where God and Moses are played by Charlton
Heston or Burt Lancaster though I do like the story about John Wayne who was
miscast as the centurion at the foot of the cross in The Greatest Story Ever Told. He only had one line – 'Surely this
man is the Son of God,' but he delivered it as flatly as a man ordering pizza
immediately after a three course meal. 'We need more awe, Duke,' the
exasperated director explained and almost inevitably when the cameras rolled
again Wayne said, 'Aw, truly this man is the Son of God.'
I tend to like smaller scale films but I
am aware that in depicting clergy, filmmakers are prone to playing it for
laughs or portraying them as psychopaths. Who can forget Robert Mitchum's
unhinged wandering preacher in Night of
the Hunter? Thus I am happy to report that Calvary, the new film from John Michael McDonagh, takes religion
seriously and portrays the practice of religion with a dignity that is moving
and memorable.
Brendan Gleeson is
Father James Lavelle, a Roman Catholic priest whose beliefs and attitude
towards religion are not defined entirely by the church to which he belongs. He
has had a life before priesthood. He has been married and has a grown up
daughter. He is a man with a calling but it's his calling and he does it his
way. In a very dramatic opening a man who was abused by a priest as a child
says he is going to kill a good priest to make a point and that priest will be
father James Lavelle and it will happen on 'Sunday week.' The rest of the
film portrays Father Lavelle continuing his ministry over several days with
this hanging over him. We see people treating him with a certain amount of
contempt and hostility, denying him his dignity and losing their own in the
process. It's a sad reminder of the strong streak of anti-religious sentiment
that has built up over recent decades.
However we also see
father Lavelle upholding and affirming those around him, even ultimately, the
person who intends to kill him. At one point we see him sharing in the ritual
of prayer with a bereaved woman. The words don't matter but that shared
experience of prayer does. We see him sharing in the fragility of breakdown,
sacrificing himself for a community that in so many ways does not seem to want
to know him. The New Testament parallels are obvious and yet largely missing
from the reviews I've read.
Calvary is my favourite film of the year so far and has triggered questions
that still resonate several weeks later. Self-sacrifice makes for great drama
but how central should it be to our understanding of faith and can it be taken
too far? How can religious groups respond effectively to anti-religious
sentiment? When belief is not enough, to what extent can ritual fill the gap? Late
on a Sunday night, I don't propose to answer any of these questions but if you
have any thoughts, please post them.
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