Amazon.com: What happens to the people putting on a Passion Play? Someday Mel Gibson may tell us, but Denys Arcand's Jesus of Montreal proposes an engaging possibility. In hip present-day Montreal, a group of actors stages the Passion in an outdoor, somewhat avant-garde style, led by the quietly charismatic and increasingly uncanny young man (Lothaire Bluteau, Black Robe) playing Christ. His identification with the role, and the way it bleeds into real life, gives director Denys Arcand plenty of opportunities for social comment--some of it spot-on, some of it a little facile. But the fragile Bluteau is such a fascinating lead presence (the other actors are familiar from Arcand's Barbarian Invasions and Decline of the American Empire) that the movie's spell lasts long after it's over. Turns out the French-Canadian approach to the Passion can be just as intriguing as the original Aramaic. --Robert Horton
Beautiful, but perpetuates dissociated ideas about enlightenment I loved certain parts of this movie, such as the characters' bonding and rising up from their lost lives and finding a purpose and cause with deeper meaning - one beyond money, shallow fame, and conventional success. I also found many of the parallels between the life of Jesus (as written in the Bible) and lives of the characters in the movie to be extremely clever. Sometimes, however, these were intellectually a bit too clever, and didn't deliver enough of an emotional punch. Other times, though, the cleverness overlapped with emotional content fantastically (such as when the main character symbolically overturned the moneychangers' table at the temple) and the movie just sang.
A few other criticisms:
1) The movie was slow to get started. It took about 45 minutes to come up to speed, though once it did it really took off, and the last half-hour just flew.
2) The portrayal of Jesus was of a dissociated, magically-human Jesus that tires me out. I didn't care to see the miracles of him walking on water and healing the blind. To me that's just silly, dated mythology. I want to see a new Jesus!
3) I didn't like how they sexualized the relationship between the actor who played Jesus and his pretty co-actor. I don't believe an enlightened Jesus would have been in a sexual relationship. Also, there was a scene where the Jesus character was nude in a bathtub and someone brings a little girl in and she kisses him on the lips. Um, at best unnecessary, at worst perverse.
4) But my main criticism: The actor who played Jesus, who slowly melded his real life with that of Jesus's life as told in the Bible, was presented as having become, by the end of the film, a sort of enlightened guru. I found this portrayal of enlightenment false - more as emotionally splitting off and becoming dissociated, less as becoming truly enlightened and aware. I see enlightenment as the result of working through one's traumas, grieving, and connecting fully with the best of one's inner spirit. I felt the actor who played Jesus did not become connected with his true self much at all, nor did he manifest true greatness - and instead just lost himself in a dissociated role and ultimately died for little emotional purpose.
A thoughtful, witty, deeply moving Passion Play Why is it that the most truly moving spiritual films tend to be either those made by non-believers, or else brash, untraditional, even avant-garde reinterpretations of the basic story? Yet that's the case once more in this lovely version of the life & death of Jesus, as presented by a somewhat motley troupe of French-Canadian actors.
What begins as an attempt by a cynical local cleric to essentially jazz up the annual Passion Play, in order to get more people in attendance, turns into an actual living out of the story by the lead actors. It's indeed a literal imitation of Christ, one that transforms the actors & invites them to become more than what they are, drawing out "the better angels of their nature" in a very real way.
Soon the actors find their roles merging with their everyday lives, particularly on the part of Jesus. It's both amusingly satiric & painfully pointed, asking the audience to consider just how honestly they live out their most firmly-held beliefs in their own everyday lives. And it demonstrates how troubling & even threatening an actual return of Jesus would be to those who claim to follow his teachings, but tend to talk the talk rather than walk the walk.
Of course the story has a tragic ending ... or does it? It makes the viewer reflect on every idealistic movement & belief that's captured an instance of glowing goodness, only to be snuffed out by the powers that be as a danger to the status quo. Even so, the film ends on a note of hope, a reminder that we don't have to settle for the lowest common denominator, that we don't have to compromise everything -- if we're willing to make the necessary sacrifices & live the lives we could be living.
For believer, agnostic, and atheist alike, most highly recommended!
The Power of the Passion In JESUS OF MONTREAL, a well-meaning priest hires an actor, Daniel Coulombe (Lothaire Bluteau) to rewrite and perform the Passion Play. Daniel gathers together a small group of fellow artists and together they rework the original script from the priest into a profound, thought-provoking, and emotional moving experience. The play turns into a huge success and the must-see show in Montreal. However, Daniel's company's somewhat radical interpretation of some key events stirs controversy with the Church hierarchy. Meanwhile, the lives of Daniel and his company begins to mirror the life of Christ and his disciples, illustrating the power of the story they have been telling each night.
There is a great deal to admire about JESUS OF MONTREAL; the acting, writing, lighting, and cinematography are all excellent. The film was made in 1989, so some of the costumes, hair, and design look a bit dated. However, the general overall tone of the film is so powerful that these things are easily overlooked. In short, JESUS OF MONTREAL is a moving modern-day parable that illustrates the power of the Gospel to change people's lives.
Intriguing Concept ... The movie is not for those who are easily influenced in their faith, since it includes scenes where presumably the church is hiding the fact that Jesus wasn't really raised from the dead.
It is a foreign film with dubbed English, and it plays very well. Although the movie is slow, it is a great concept, and I appreciated how it played out, especially the end.
Interestingly, just after I watched this movie, one of my congregation members asked, "I wonder if people who play Jesus in movies are influenced by playing the part?" The movie opened a great conversation with them, and I was glad I watched it.
a compelling, thought-provoking masterpiece This film is a profound meditation on the nature of Christ as understood in different ways by different people in different contexts. It ponders the question of how the idea and felt reality of Christ (again, in various forms) fit into a larger understanding of the world, in the past and in the present.
It is a tour de force as it reviews many different ways of how "to tell the old, old story"--actor Daniel Coulombe is hired by a priest to freshen up a very stodgy Passion Play, and he does just that: the resulting dramatic presentation is nothing short of brilliant, even in its variations from night to night. A truly inspired scene involves several different schticks used to pantomime the Biblical story, using a Brando-esque "Method" style, Kabuki, Parisian night-club, and street-realist presentations--all (sort of) in jest.
But as he puts together the crew for this performance, Daniel's life begins to mirror that of the Biblical Christ, in surprising and profound ways. One or two parallels would come across as obviously didactic, but the film bombards viewers with so many that it becomes an object of wonder: Daniel does live the life, and death, of the typical portrayal of Christ, but in ways that are ambiguous in their meanings.
And that is the strength of this film: unlike films such as Mel Gibson's "Passion" that (semi-literally) flog viewers with their stolid and impossible attempts at realism, "Jesus of Montreal" works on a metaphoric, symbolic level. The meaning of the film is what you make of it--but its intensity forces you in fact to make something of it. You cannot watch this film seriously without having questions arise about what we know and understand of God, Jesus, faith, and the stories that govern people's lives.
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