Screen Priests - The Online Supplement
Screen Priest, Depictions of Catholic Priests in Cinema, 1900-2108 was published by ATF Press in 2019.
Since publication, there have, of course, been many more depictions of priests on screen.
This is an online Supplement to the book - a continuing work...
Titles, Directors and Actors are noted first to help readers know what is in the Supplement. Using the Find mechanism will, of course, lead to the comments on the films in this text.
Richard Leonard SJ launching the book, 30th August 2019.
The author responding
SCREEN PRIESTS, The Depiction of Catholic Priests in Cinema, 1900-2018: the ONLINE SUPPLEMENT.
Screen Priest, Depictions of Catholic Priests in Cinema, 1900-2108 was published by ATF Press in 2019.
Since publication, there have, of course, been many more depictions of priests on screen.
This is an online Supplement to the book.
Titles, Directors and Actors are noted first to help readers know what is in the Supplement. Using the Find mechanism will, of course, lead to the comments on the films in this text.
For locating the films in the context of Screen Priests, page references to the book are given for each film here to indicate where it would have been included in the book.
Titles
21 Bridges, 2019
ABC Murders, The, 2019
Acid/ Kitlosa, 2019
Akellare/ Coven, 2020
All Together Now, 2020
Alquien tiene que morir/ Someone has to Die, 2020
Anton, 2020
Apostate, The, 2015
Ash Wednesday, 2002
Ben and Arthur, 2002
Birthday, 2009
Blanche comme Neige, 2019
Bronx/ Rogue City, 2020
Brooklyn Rules, 2007
Call to Spy, A, 2019
Camino Skies, 2019
Cocaine Grandmother, 2017
Comeback Trail, The, 2020
Conductor, The, 2018
Con is On, The, 2018
Conjuring 3, The: The Devil Made Me Do It, 2020
Corpus Christi, 2019
Cristo Ciego, El/ The Blind Christ, 2016
Cuatro Lunas/ Four Moons, 2014
Curse of Chucky, The, 2013
Dark Waters, 2019
Daughter of Darkness, 1948
Day of Wrath/Dzien Gniewu, 2019
De Gaulle, 2020
Devil’s Candy, The, 2015
Dry, The, 2020
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, 2021
Fatima, 2020
Fitzgerald Family Christmas, The, 2012
Francesco, 2021
From the Vine, 2020
Gates of Darkness, 2020
Girl in the Box, The, 2016
Good Catholic, The, 2017
Grace: the Possession, 2014
Habit, 2021
Healer, The, 2017
Heart of Camden – The Father Michael Doyle Story, 2020
Henry V, 1945
Henry V, 1989
Hidden Life, A, 2019
Hitler: Beast of Burden, 1939
Holy Lands, The, 2018
Hubie Halloween, 2020
Ideal Palace, The, 2018
Innocente, L’/ The Innocent, 2021
Interrogation, The, 2016
Irishman, The, 2019
It Must Be Heaven, 2019
Jonas/ I am Jonas, 2018
#Jowable, 2019
King, The, 2019
Kitchen, The, 2019
Lambs of God, 2019
Last Right, The, 2019
Laundromat, The, 2019
Legacy of the Bones, The/ Leguardo del los Huesos, 2019
Litigante, 2019
Little Hours, The, 2017
Luca, 2021
Mapplethorpe, 2018
Mare of Easttown, 2021
Mark of the Devil, Marca del Demonio, 2019
Menendez, El Dia del Senor, Parte 1, 2020.
Million Little Pieces, A, 2018
Miss Meadows, 2014
Mole Agent, The, 2020
Mrs America, 2020
Murder in Mesopotamia, 2001
Naked, 2017
New York Christmas Wedding, A, 2020
Ninth Street, 1999
No Sleep til’ Christmas, 2018
Novitiate, The, 2017
Old Guard, The, 2020
Pain and Glory/ Dolor & Gloria, 2019
Palm Trees in the Snow, Palmares en la Nieve, 2015
Pane, e/ Scandal in Sorrento, 1955
Perfect Obedience, 2014
Pixie, 2020
Possession of Hannah Grace, The, 2018
Prison Break, 1938
Promised, 2019
Puzzle, 2019
Rattlesnake, 2019
Resistance, 2019
Ride Like a Girl, 2019
Rolling to You/ Tout le Monde Debout, 2018
Rose in Winter, A, 2018
Saint Frances, 2019
Servants, The, 2020
Seven Sinners/ Doomed Cargo, 1936
Shrine. 2020
Sign Painter, The, 2020
Stateless, 2019
Toro, 2016
Toy Boy, 2019
Two Popes, The, 2019
Undercover Grandpa, 2017
Unholy, The
Vampires Vs The Bronx, 2020
Vessel, The, 2016
Ville dont le Prince est un Enfant, La/ The Fire that Burns, 1997
Voces/ Voices/ Don’t Listen, 2020
Walkout, 2007
Wasp Network, 2020
Way Back, The, 2020
Words on Bathroom Walls, 2020
Your Name Engraved Herein, 2020
Yours, Mine and Ours, 1968
Directors
Abit, Otoja, A New York Christmas Wedding
Aguero, Pablo, Akellare/Coven
Alberdi, Maite, The Mole Agent
Afineesky, Evgeny, Francesco
Almodovar, Pedro, Pain and Glory
Alvarado Ilarrri, Santiago, Menendez, El Dia del Senor, Parte 1,
Arango, Paco, The Healer
Assayas, Olivier, Wasp Network
Baena, Jeff, The Little Hours
Berloff, Andrea, The Kitchen
Betts, Maggie
Branagh, Kenneth, Henry V
dBravo, Janicza, Mrs America/ Houston
Brill, Steven, Hubie Halloween
Burns, Edward, Ash Wednesday
Burns, Edward, The Fitzgerald Family Christmas
Byrne, Sean, The Devil’s Candy
Canuel, Erik, Undercover Grandpa
Caro, Manolo, Someone has to die
Casarosa, Enrico, Luca
Chan, Jeff, Grace: the Possession
Charrier, Christophe, Jonas
Chaves, Michael, The Conjuring 3
Cisterna, Sean, From the Vine
Clayton, Douglas, Heart of Camden
Clegg, Tom, Murder in Mesopotamia
Cohen, Diego, Mark of the Devil
Conidi, Nick, Promised
Comfort, Lance, Daughter of Darkness
Connolly, Robert, The Dry
Corrente, Michael, Brooklyn Rules
Crehan, Aiofe, The Last Right
De Clemont Tonerre, Laure, Mrs America/ Jill
De Courville, Albert, Seven Sinners
Dubosc, Frank, Rolling to You
FauntLeroy, Don E., Gates of Darkness
Fontaine, Anne, Blanche comme Neige
Freeman, Emma, Stateless
Freudenthal, Thor, Words on Bathroom Walls
Gabassi, Alex, The ABC Murders
Gallo, George, The Comeback Trail
Grady, Fergus, Camino Skies
Griffiths, Rachel, Ride Like a Girl
Haley, Brett, All Together Now
Harkness, James, Birthday
Haslam, James, The Con is On
Haynes, Todd, Dark Waters
Hernandez, Angel Gomez, Voces
Hilditch, Zak, Rattlesnake
Hopkins, Karen Leigh, Miss Meadows
Jakubowicz, Jonathan, Resistance
Kalriss, Viesturs, The Sign Painter
Kemp, Stephen, The Girl in the Box
Kirk, Brian, 21 Bridges
Komasa, Jan, Corpus Christi
Le Bornin, Gabriel, De Gaulle
Liu, Patrick, Your Name Engraved Herein
Lolli, Franco, Litigante
Lubin, Arthur, Prison Break
Maiello, Kike, Toro
Malavoy, Christophe, La Ville dont le Prince est un Enfant
Malick, Terrence, A Hidden Life
Mancini, Don, Curse of Chucky
Marchal, Oliver, Bronx/Rogue
Meireilles, Fernando, The Two Popes
Mercero, Inaki, Toy Boy
Michod, David, The King
Millott, Jonathan, Bushwick
Molina, Fernando Gonzalez, The Legacy of the Bones
Molina, Fernando Gonzalez, Palm Trees in the Snow, Palmares en la Nieve
Moorhouse, Jocelyn, Stateless
Mraovich, Sam, Ben and Arthur
Murnion, Cary, Bushwick
Navarro, Guillermo, Cocaine Grandma
Newfield, Sam (Sherman Scott), Hitler, Beast of Burden
O’Connor, Gavin, The Way Back
Olivier, Laurence, Henry V
Olmos, Edward James, Walkout
Ostrachovsky, Ivan, The Servants
Paulo, Oriol, L’Innocente
Pery, Eerez, The Interrogation
Peters, Maria, The Conductor
Pilcher, Lydia Dean, A Call to Spy
Pontecorvo, Marco, Fatima
Prince-Blythewood, Gina, The Old Guard
Raginis-Krolikiwiecz, Jacek, Day of Wrath
Risi, Dino, Pane e/ Scandal in Sorrento
Robitel, Adam, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
Rodriguez, Oz, Vampires Vs The Bronx
Quintana, Julio, The Vessel
Quintas, Javier, Toy Boy
Rebman, Tim, Ninth Street
Scorsese, Martin, The Irishman
Scott, Sherman (Sam Newfield), Hitler, Beast of Burden
Shavelson, Melvin, Yours, Mine and Ours
Shirtcliff, Janell, Habit
Shoulberg, Paul, The Good Catholic
Sinclair, Joshua A Rose in Winter
Smyth, Noel, Camino Skies
Soderbergh, Steven, The Laundromat
Spiliotopoulos, Evan, The Unholy
Sthers, Amanda, Holy Lands
Sulieman, Elia, It Must Be Heaven
Tavernier, Nils, The Ideal Palace
Taylor-Johnson, Sam, A Million Little Pieces
Thompson, Alex, Saint Frances
Thompson, Barnaby, Pixie
Tiddes, Michael, Naked
Timoner, Ondi, Mapplethorpe
Traill, Phil, No Sleep til’ Christmas
Turteltaub, Marc, Puzzle
Urquiza, Luis, Perfect Obedience
Urushadze, Zaza, Anton
Van Rooijen, Diederik, Pssession of Hannah Grace
Veiroj, Federico, The Apostate
Velade, Serio Tovar, Cuatro Lunas
Walker, Jeffrey, Lambs of God
Willmott, Kevin, Ninth Street
Yap, Darryl, #Jowable
Zobel, Craig, Mare of Easttown
Actors
Akerman, Jeremy, The Healer
Anton, Sebastyan, Anton
Agirre, Ramon, Palm Trees in the Snow, Palmares en la Nieve
Arias, Imanol, Legacy of the Bones
Arredondo, Hector, Cuatro Lunas
Aumont, La Ville dont le Prince est un Enfant
Aylmer, Felix, Henry V (1945)
Aylward, John, The Way Back
Baldwin, Alec, Pixie
Baron, Philippe, The Ideal Palace
Bell, John, Lambs of God
Bemmer, Brandon, Gates of Darkness
Bell, Tobin, Gates of Darkness
Bielenia, Bartosz, Corpus Christi
Blechinberg, Bill, Bushwick
Bradley, D.M., Birhday
Calot, Juan, The Apostate
gracCarotenuto, Mario, Pane, e/ Scandal in Sorrento
Castro, Sebastian, Holy Lands
Chiklis, Michael, Hubie Halloween
Clemens, Guy, The Possession of Hannah Grace
Climent, Joaquin, The Apostate
Cocquerel, Thomas, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
Coffinet, Francis, Rolling to You
Coulter, Steve, The Conjuring 3
Cox, Brian, The Last Right
Dale, Alan, Grace: the Possession
Dane, Lawrence, Undercover Grandpa
De Almeida, Joaquim, Fatima
Demaison, Francois-Xavier, Rollling to You
Domingo Jr, Manny, Camino Skies
Doyle, Joe, A Call to Spy
Elwes, Cary, The Unholy
Fabregas, Juli, Menendez, el Dia del Senor, Parte 1
Fitts, Rick, Naked
Frechette, Richard, Blanche comme Neige
Fry, Stephen, The Con is On
Gallegos, Frank, The Laundromat
Garcia, Andy, Words on Bathroom Walls
Garcia, Jorge, The Healer
Glover, Danny, The Good Catholic
Godin, Barry, Puzzle
Gonzalez, Alberto, The Legacy of the Bones
Gorchilin, Aleksandr, Acid/ Kitlosa
Gordon, Charles Carroll, The Conductor
Grangeon, Fabio, Your Name Engraved Herein
Hanchard, Kevin, No Sleep til’ Christmas
Handy, James, Ash Wednesday
Harcourt, James, Seven Sinners
Havill, Andrew, The King
Helpmann, Robert, Henry V (1945)
Herriman, Daniel, Lambs of God
Hindley, Bill, Ben and Arthur
Hodges, :Phil, The King
Hopkins, Anthony, The Two Popes
Huff, Neal, Mare of Easttown
Hunter, Christopher, Murder in Mesopotamia
Jouffroy, Romain, It Must be Heaven
Kay, Charles, Henry V (1989)
Kimble, Joshua, Rattlesnake
Lake, Charles, Mark of the Devil
Lawner, Damon, Habit
Lee, C.S., All Together Now
Lenkowski, Philip, Resistance
Linka, Peter, A Rose in Winter
Lobato, John, Gates of Darkness
Loudun, Thomas, Prison Break
Malafonte, Albert, A Million Little Pieces
Malavoy, Christophe, La Ville dont le Prince est un Enfant
Martinez, A, Curse of Chucky
Malkovich, John, The ABC Murders
McArdle, James, Mare of Easttown
McCafferty, Frankie, Pixie
McCowan, Alec, Henry V (1989)
McGinley, John C., The Good Catholic
McKinnon, Eugene, The Dry
McMahon, Travis, Birthday
Mikulak, Milan, Servants
Minujin, Juan, The Two Popes
Mitchell, Brian Stokes, Mapplethorpe
Morgado, Diogo, The Unholy
Moore, Joel David, Grace: the Possession
Moretti, Tobias, A Hidden Life
Newman, Frederick, Hitler, Beast of Burden
O’Neill, Brian, Brooklyn Rules
Noriega, Eduardo, Mark of the Devil
Noth, Chris, A New York Christmas Wedding
Nyqvist, Michael, A Hidden Life
O’Hare, Denis, The Novitiate
Oruesagasti, Asier, Akellare/ Coven
Pazura, Radoslaw, Day of Wrath
Peters, Clarke, Grace: the Possession
Pryce, Jonathan, The Two Popes
Radin, Jeremy, The Way Back
Redmond, Liam, Daughter of Darkness
Reid, Sam, Lambs of God
Reilly, John C., The Little Hours
Sadler, William, The Unholy
Sanchez, Uriel (as Padre Uriel Sanchez), Litigante
Saul, Tahki, Lambs of God
Sengewald, Christian, A Hidden Life
Sheen, Martin, The Vessel
Ninth Street
Schick, Bill, The Novitiate
Shortt, Pat, Pixie
Silva, Michael, El Cristo Ciego, The Blind Christ
Simlat, Lukasz, Corpus Christi
Sola, Asier, The Legacy of the Bones
Smith, Cliff ‘Method Man’, Vampires Vs The Bronx
Spicer, Zachary, The Good Catholic
Stevens, Tom Patrick, The Kitchen
St John, Marco, The Novitiate
Strnisko, Vladimir, Servants
Sutton, Lance, The Novitiate
Swierk, Walter, The Novitiate
Thompson, Colin, The King
Usai, Angelo, Promised
Van Aschtan, Gijs Scholten, The Possession of Hannah Grace
Van Randen, Peter, Voces
Wardejn, Zdzislaw, Corpus Christi
Widder, Kristof, The King
Wright, Shawn, The Girl in the Box
21 BRIDGES
21 Bridges (2019, d. Brian Kirk) is a very strong police drama. The film opens with a funeral, a police officer killed in the line of duty, mourned by his widow and young son, African-American. Setting the tone for the film, the priest is quite harsh in his interpretation of murder and God’s subsequent avenging mood.
Screen Priests, p. 311.
___________________________________________________________________________
THE ABC MURDERS
The ABC Murders is one of Agatha Christie’s most popular novels and features her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. It was filmed in 1966 by the company who made the Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple films, given a light touch with the casting of Tony Randall. And, of course, it was filmed with David Suchet as Poirot.
When this version was first screened on British television, The ABC Murders (2018, d. Alex Gabassi), the bloggers were outraged. This was not Agatha Christie’s story, plot details changed at, characters dropped, others introduced. And, of course, John Malkovich did not fit expectations of Poirot. For those interested in a different interpretation of Poirot, this version is very interesting. It is 1933 but he is retired, living alone, morbid in his memories – especially of his migration to Britain in 1914 (and there are echoes of hostility to foreigners with posters and antiforeign badges on several of the characters), his experience of the German attack on a village and the fate of the villagers in the church. This eventually has an explanation which would have astonished Agatha Christie.
And, finally the motivation is given for the retired Poirot – and of all solutions, he is a priest in Belgium wanting to save his parishioners from the attacking Germans (flashbacks to the war) but failing, the church set on fire, parishioners killed – and Poirot wanting to avenge the dead by investigating murder mysteries.
Screen Priests, 24
__________________________________________________________________________
ACID/ KITLOSA
Central characters of the film (2019, d. Aleksandr Gorchilin) are young, a group of friends, bonding together, sharing in drugs and drink, issues of sexuality. Ultimately, there is a confrontation, not in a place where one might expect it in this Russian film and with these young characters. Somehow other, one man has something of a conversion and agrees to attend a baptism in the church. This has a damaging effect on the other who, angry, gets the acid and wants to put it in the baptismal font. There is prayer, the celebration of the baptism , words from the priest about religious symbolism – and the audience attention as to what will happen to the young baby as it goes to the font. The angry man upends the font and the acid-water.
Screen Priests, 331.
_____________________________________________________________________
AKELLARE/ COVEN
Spain, 1609. Basque country, the Inquisition. The film (2020, d. Pablo Aguero) opens with flames and witches being burnt alive. The Inquisitor is travelling around with the secretary and a surgeon, searching for witches. Six young women are accused of witchcraft. The head of the Inquisition is sinister (not clear whether he is clerical or not). At a re-creation of a witches’ sabbath, one of the women tantalizes the Inquisitor. Present is a rather young priest of the parish (Asier Oruesagasti) ingratiates himself, irritates the secretary, sits in on the hearings, manifests his own superstitions and moves into some frenzied condemnations and declarations of blasphemy.
Screen Priests, 618.
____________________________________________________________________
ALGUIEN TIENE QUE MORIR/ SOMEONE HAS TO DIE
A Mexican/ Spanish melodrama set in the later Franco years. No religious themes, but it sets a tone with women working 14 hour shifts in prison-like factories assembled and being loudly harangued by the chaplain singling out two women in a lesbian relationship, shaming them and intimidating the group with hellfire religious condemnation.
Screen Priests, 224
ALL TOGETHER NOW
(2020, d. Brett Haley.) A talented high school student has musical ambitions, a hard home life, encouragement from teachers – and sings with a group at a home for the elderly. The choir includes older Korean ladies whom Amber helps with their language studies and the genial Korean Fr Chee (C.S. Lee) – who happily joins the choir as back-up for a final concern spectacular.
Screen Priests, 350
________________________________________________________________________
ANTON
It is the end of World War I, and the setting is Russia/Ukraine, to become the Soviet Union (2020, d. Zaza Urushadze). Horseback Bolshevik forces ride through the countryside, demanding loyalties, killing and destroying. Trotsky himself is seen as part of these forces, along with a viciously aggressive, Commissar, Dora, in love with Trotsky. There are Jews in the community. There are also migrant Germans from the 19th century who settled there. Anton is a youngster, one of the Germans. His best friend is Yasha, son of the Jewish shopkeeper.
There is tragedy for Anton’s father. There are threats to Yasha’s father. And, a strong influence in the village is the local priest, Friedrich, seen at ceremonies in the church, who has a past in social uprisings but keeps a watchful eye on the village, protective of his sister, Anton’s mother. He becomes a significant part of the political manoeuvrings as well as the social uprisings. He has a link with Trotsky, leading to a violent confrontation.
Screen Priests, 391
_______________________________________________________________________
THE APOSTATE
Apostate is a loaded word for a title, the emphasis on faith, the retreat from faith, the denial of faith. It has a long history in Christianity – and condemnations. The Apostate (2015, d. Fernando Veiroj) is in the tradition of Spanish Catholicism, strong emphases and dominance, anti-Catholicism, anticlerical attitudes.
Gonzalo, the young man, the potential apostate, is a student, something of a philosopher. He decides to withdraw from the church, searches for his baptismal certificate which makes him officially Catholic in Spain, wants to declare it invalid, and therefore find freedom. This involves all kinds of bureaucratic searches, discussions with clergy, issues about doctrine and indoctrination, legal aspects, religious aspects.
In fact, there are quite a lot of religious themes to be explored in just 80 minutes – ending with the young man being officially an apostate, but his wondering, and the audience wondering where this will lead. He visits the church, meeting Father Quiros (Joaquin Clement) , then on to discussions Bishop Jorge (Juan Calot), a sympathetic hearing, the range of discussions on the history of apostasy, of faith, issues of a ceremonial of leaving, the candle and walking backwards out of the church.
Will there is strong explicit and implicit criticisms of the traditions of Spanish Catholicism, discussions about doctrine and indoctrination, a 21st-century questioning of the role of Catholicism, belief and atheism in Spain, the presentation of the clergy is not entirely unsympathetic.
Screen Priests, 384
BEN AND ARTHUR
Sam Mraovich plays Arthur in Ben and Arthur (2002, d, Sam Mraovich), a gay man who is in a relationship with Ben, married, trying to get a divorce from a very angry wife. They are advised by a lawyer to have a ceremony in Vermont, which they do (rather stilted) and come back to California and fight their case.
In the meantime, Arthur goes to visit his alienated brother, Victor, to borrow money for a college course. The brother is quite fanatical, homophobic, drawing on the gospel and declarations of faith in Jesus, very much in an evangelical vein. So, it is a surprise, when we find that he belongs to a Catholic parish. He goes to visit the parish priest, Fr Rabin (Bill Hindley), who has to be seen and heard to be believed! Conventional in some ways, he is rabid homophobic, declaring that all homosexuals will go to hell, Church because of Victor’s homosexual brother, causing him anguish. Victor hires a private detective to get information about his homosexual brother, then colludes with the priest to hire a hitman, deciding that it is better for his brother to die than to live his gay life. There is an absurd episode with holy water being stuck to the gay men’s door!
It becomes highly melodramatic by the end, the angry Victor being revealed (or we thought this initially) as a repressed homosexual, murdering the lawyer in her car in a parking area, confronting Ben and shooting him, initially failing, but returning to kill him confronting his brother, stripping him naked and baptising him in the shower. And then, each kills the other.
In many ways, there are touches of the absurd despite the good intentions of all those involved.
Screen Priests, p.313
BIRTHDAY
An Australian drama, directed by James Harkness, 2009. This synopsis was written by the director as J. Harkness. “M is the highest paid professional of the many girls at Scarlet's, but, even on her 25th birthday, it's business as usual. M's trade is sex, but sex doesn't sell the way it used to; what client's are searching for, paying for... is love. Instead of celebrating, her day is spent answering the silent prayers of Father Phillip (Travis McMahon, with D.M Bradley as Fr Spoor), who has lost his faith and providing counsel to her colleagues, the vivacious Lily and troubled Cindy. Amidst the many dramas that unfold and the demands of the 'no-nonsense' Scarlet, M's secret birthday wish goes unanswered. That is, until Joey knocks on her door; a young man, forgotten by the world, who has never learned to love, or even how to kiss. But Joey also has a secret, it's his Birthday too, and today M may just discover that even the smallest, most unexpected wish can come true. Birthday encompasses lost love, first times, humanity and the discovery of intimacy in surprising and unexpected places.”
Screen Priests, 492
________________________________________________________________________
BLANCHE COMME NEIGE
Something of a 21st century fairy tale, Snow White in particular, a rather free-wheeling Snow White (Claire – light) who relates to seven men with passion (frequently sexual), her seven admirers (not exactly dwarfs). The Catholic themes are unexpected. A south-eastern France setting, in the Alps and the Marian apparition shrine of La Salette. But, more unexpectedly, one of the ‘dwarfs’ is a priest.
And, also unexpectedly, this is a very sympathetic and understanding portrait of a middle-aged French priest. He is seen at first in a bookshop, clerical collar, owned by an atheist friend, encountering Claire, chatting in a friendly manner. He rides a motorbike and gives Claire a lift to the shrine. He is a mature man, an understanding man, showing Claire the shrine, not surprised by what she tells him of her sexual encounters. And, she surprises herself by feeling free and comfortable with him, almost immediately, to unburden herself to him. She is frank and direct. He reassures her indicating the wide range of sin that he is told. He also quotes Jesus’ words of not judging. He is shown to be exactly what a good man, a celibate priest, ought to be like.
His ministry extends to meeting Claire’s stepmother, Maude, the evil, jealous, murderous stepmother. She feels comfortable with him as he welcomes her to the shrine, talking openly and personably. She has malevolent intentions in meeting Claire. The priest, not knowing this, is able to find an opportunity to bring Maud and the unsuspecting Claire together.
At the end, Claire lying in hospital after Maud’s attack on her, the seven men come to her bedside, some kissing her, others respectfully touching her. The priest simply signs the cross on her forehead.
Quite a sympathetic picture of a priest (especially in the era of widespread clerical abuse).
Screen Priests, p.379
BRONX/ROGUE
A French gangster story (2020, d. Oliver Marchal) – includes a later ceremony and the church, the priest, the police interrupting, the arrests, the reaction of the gang members, the contrast with the later death, the more sober funeral rites, the priest in clerical suit.
Screen Priests, 380
_____________________________________________________________________
BROOKLYN RULES
A New York gangster film (2007, d. Michael Corrente) taking for granted its religious atmosphere, the focus on the face of Jesus crucified, the Bible readings, the rituals in church, priest (Brian O’Neill), the nun and her collecting the money.
Screen Priests, 251
BUSHWICK
Bushwick (2017, d. Jonathan Millot, Cary Murnion) looks like a post-Apocalyptic drama but, in fact, turns out to be an imaginary take on the present. Upheaval in New York, a young priest and the church, helping the wounded in the battles in the streets. Pessimism in the ending, Fr. John (Bill Blechinberg) in the basement, his despair, quoting the Scriptures, his death.
Screen Priests, 318
A CALL TO SPY
A World War II espionage story (2019, d. Lydia Dean Pilcher), a French Resistance story, focusing on American, Virginia Hill, her work in Vichy France. One of the characters is a local priest (Joe Doyle) who gives thundering sermons against the Nazis and is seen working with the Resistance – but Virginia is suspicious about his authenticity. The priest is also connected with Klaus Barbie, well-known over the years and seen in many war films, the butcher of Lyon. The priest is the traitor-informant.
Screen Priests, 54
___________________________________________________________________________________
CAMINO SKIES
A documentary from New Zealand, the Camino pilgrimage route across the top of Spain from the Pyrenees to Compostela (2019, d. Fergus Grady, Noel Smyth). The selected characters in this film are proof that the 800 km walk is possible for a wide range of men and women, even for those who are older than they used to be.
Other Camino films include Emilio Estevez’ feature film, The Way, and the documentary, The Camino, Six Ways to Santiago, a larger number of characters, especially from North America and from Europe.
There is a brief introduction and explanation by Filipino Salesian priest (Manny Domingo Jr), it is both a spiritual and secular pilgrimage, an alternative to being continually busy, a possibility for reflection if not contemplation, a challenge for self-assessment, probing some of the deeper meanings of what it is to be alive, to be joyful, to suffer, to be young, to grow old.
Screen Priests, 421.
______________________________________________________________________
COCAINE GRANDMOTHER
Not much religious perspective in this story of a powerful drug dealer from Colombia, working in the US until she is present at the First Communion of her son where she expresses that fervour and belief at such an event, characteristic of Hispanic mothers. The priest (not credited) officiates, the boy receiving the host then rushing to his mother who lavishes attention on him, exhorting him to be good.
Screen Priests, 334
THE COMEBACK TRAIL
The Comeback Trail (2020, d. George Gallo) offers a mixed bag of entertainment. It takes us back to Hollywood in 1974, the era of exploitation films, an era of shonky producers (well, perhaps, that is always with us), deals with and insurance scams. Priests and nuns are seen picketing a cinema screening Killer Nun.
Screen Priests, 179
THE CONDUCTOR
(Not screened in Australia.) Netherlands, 2018, d. Maria Peters, Cast listed: James Carroll Jordan, priest.
_
_________________________________________________________________________
THE CON IS ON
This is a confidence trick’s film that seems something of a confidence trick in itself (2018, d. James Haslam).
Stephen Fry offers a horrible caricature performance, first seen as a priest hosing down street people, a drug dealer, ostentatiously gay with a Korean assistant, affirming a fleeing couple in Los Angeles but then betraying them, aiding criminals – with various gay memories including some assault.
Reading the unanimous views of the IMDb bloggers, starting with “Atrocious”, is much more interesting and entertaining than seeing the film!
Screen Priests, 179
________________________________________________________________________
THE CONJURING 3: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
This is the third in the Conjuring series but Ed and Lorraine Warren have been associated with a number of other films in what is now franchise, the Annabelle films, The Nun. The Warren’s rose to some prominence with the haunting of the house in Amityville, filmed in 1978 as The Amityville Horror, which also led to a series of Amityville films and telemovies. They also worked in Enfield, in London.
Most drama requires a suspension of disbelief – films like this and the activities of the Warrens perhaps require a suspension of scepticism.
The Warrens were well known with their work in connection with diabolical possessions, satanic rituals, exorcisms. They worked in collaboration with the church. They also became famous as television personalities – and, at the end of this film, there are clips from an interview with the Warrens themselves as well as the audio of the exorcism performed and visualised in the prologue here.
In fact, the prologue is quite alarming, obviously in the tradition of The Exorcist with the priest arriving outside the building to perform the ceremony, this time a boy of eight, possessed, writhing and contorting, convulsing, his parents present, his sister and her boyfriend, the Warrens and the priest joining them. This kind of thing is always disturbing to watch, especially with a young boy. It is only when the boyfriend offers to receive the demon out of the boy, that the situation becomes calm.
What emerges is the story of Satanists, the Disciples of the Ram, arrested, tried in court and imprisoned. However, they have left an underground cavern, a satanic altar, cup for blood, an animal’s death head, and a mysterious presence, a woman who has organised the ritual and continues in her search for a soul.
Which means then that there is quite a lot of drama and melodrama, the young man, Arnie (Rauiri O’Connor) possessed, viciously attacking a friend, arrested, in court, with a plea for violence under the influence of spirit possession. And his woes continue in prison, despite the help of the prison chaplain.
The film follows two lines of drama, the Warrens investigating a similar kind of case in Massachusetts, discussions with the detective, Lorraine exercising her extraordinary powers, seeing and sensing evil, becoming involved in the past story and murder. The second line is information about a former priest, who helped with the arrest of the Disciples of the Ram, but who lives alone with the relics from the sect.
Needless to say, and what we were expecting, is a buildup to a final confrontation, especially between Lorraine and the mysterious female presence, Ed coming to Lorraine’s rescue but influenced by the evil woman, a violent confrontation.
As in the other films, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga portray the Warrens.
One of the most sensational cases from the files of real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, where a young boy is murdered and the murder suspect claims demonic possession as a defense for the first time in the history of the United States. Assa. Johnson, also known as the "Devil Made Me Do It" case, is the first known court se in the United States in which the defense sought to prove innocence based upon the defendant's claim of demonic possession and denial of personal responsibility for the crime. (IMDb plot summary.)
Screen Priests, 530
_______________________________________________________________________
CORPUS CHRISTI
Corpus Christi, the Latin for the body of Christ, has found a place in the English language, a city in Texas, a religious celebration, a reference to the celebration of the Eucharist. It is an apt title for this quite intriguing story of a Polish parish, Corpus Christi (2019, d. Jan Komasa) and the young priest, Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) who serves some time ministering and having quite an effect on the parishioners.
But, we know right from the beginning, that he is not a priest.
There is a certain curiosity in wanting to see this film because it was one of the five nominees for the 2019 Oscars category of Best International Film. It seems a strange selection for the award and seems even stranger that it finished in the top nominees.
It will be of particular interest to Catholic audiences who might be intrigued as to the situation, the character of the young man, how he manages in the parish and the impact that he has on people. On the other hand, some Catholic audiences might be repelled at his character, his presumption in taking on the role of parish priest, think that it is somewhat sacrilegious. But, it is interesting, especially in terms of so much of the dialogue where everybody says “Blessed be God” in their frequent greetings to one another, and some homily reflections on the presence of God everywhere, especially in strange situations and circumstances.
Daniel has committed some violent crimes when young and is imprisoned in a juvenile detention centre, a Catholic Centre, with priests on the staff, including a chaplain. Daniel discusses a desire to enter a seminary with the chaplain but is told that with his convictions he has no chance. And, as we see some of the behaviour of the inmates, cocaine, drinking, sexual activity, some brutality towards each other, we are not surprised. However, it is Daniel who prepares the altar for Mass, does the serving, intones the hymn singing.
Sent on parole to a sawmill in a remote town, he wants to avoid the mill, goes into the church, encounters a young woman, says he is a priest and shows her the black shirt and clerical collar that he has taken from the institution.
He meets the local parish priest, an elderly and sick man who is taken to hospital – and the people ask Daniel to hear the confessions, say Mass.
One of the features of this film is that it is not anticlerical. It takes for granted the church, Mass, sacraments, anointing of the sick, funerals, pastoral care of people, and it is accurate and respectful in most of its details.
One of the main questions, of course, is what is the reality of priesthood. Daniel has some non-exemplary moments, especially with the young girl in the parish, and is pressurised by one of his fellow inmates to hand over the parish collection. But, Daniel is imbued with a sense of reverence, all kinds of moving words and sentiments coming from him as homily, as encouragement for behaviour, his challenging the parishioners to overcome quite some bigotry concerning an accident in which a number of the teenagers from the village were killed. In fact, with some contemporary and eyebrow-raising detail, there is the temptation to remember the novel by Georges Bernanos and Robert Bresson’s film, Diary of a Country Priest.
Daniel is very young, his life ahead of him, and we wonder what impact this priestly episode will have on his future. But, for audiences who have responded favourably to the film, there is much to consider about God, prayer, sin and guilt, forgiveness, the role of the priest in the church. (It is interesting to speculate what would happen in a sequel…)
Screen Priests, 391
___________________________________________________________________________
COUNTDOWN
Young adults at a party are introduced to an app which indicates when the owner of the phone will die, having a chart on the homepage indicating how much time the owner has left. A lot of horror tension in Countdown (2019. D. Justin Dec) as each of the adults tries to elude the death time. Some consult a young priest, Fr John (P.J.Byrne) (rather than the usual wise old priest who seems to have accumulated a lot of superstition lore). How and where Fr John has been so well informed about demon presences is a mystery. But, jovial and weighty he offers some information about Ozhin and the advice that to defeat the demon someone has to die before the allotted time – or survive it. So, many plans and frustrations and the puzzle about Fr John’s seminary training and/or his subsequent ministry!
Screen Priests, p. 524
______________________________________________________________
EL CRISTO CIEGO/ THE BLIND CHRIST
Who is Jesus Christ? Where is he in the world today? In the churches? In people who resemble him in his mission, in Christ figures? These are some of the questions that this film raises.
This is a brief film (2016, d. Christopher Murray) something of a contemporary probing of faith, touches of mysticism, a yearning for miracles and healing. It is a Chilean story, set in the countryside, in poor villages, some of them exploited by mining companies who drain rivers of water, in abandoned churches, outside prisons.
The central character is Michael (Michael Silva), who feels that he is something of a prophet, that God is within him, that he is something like Christ in the 21st-century, urging a young boy, nails hammered into his hand, to pray, exiled by his father but walking, barefoot, through the desert encountering people whom he might help and heal. Help he does but he fails in healing, especially in his quest to meet an old friend who has come out of prison.
Michael is denounced mockingly as a prophet but also gains quite a following who believe in him, especially the women whom he tries to help. There are attacks on organised religion, on organised Catholicism, priests abandoning parishes the years, criticisms that Michael should not baptise…
This film is not one for conclusions but rather for opening up issues and questions about the nature of faith, organised religion, faith in the heart, the possibility for miracles, the possibility for ordinary and everyday life healing.
Screen Priests, p. 388
_______________________________________________________________________
CUATRO LUNAS/ FOUR MOONS
A Mexican film (2014, d. Sergio Tovar Velade) with four stories on the theme of homosexuality. The fourth has a Catholic background, a family story, a young bpy, Mauricio, discovering his attraction to another. He wonders about himself and goes to the confessional, his hesitation, asking about homosexuality, the question of whether it was a sin. The priest says it is not and that the boy might have nothing to worry about. Mauricio prays in the church but his drive continues. The audience is left to consider what the priest has said and its effect, or not, on Mauricio.
Screen Priests, p. 257
___________________________________________________________________________
THE CURSE OF CHUCKY
A further episode in the stories of the venomous doll, Chucky, written and directed by its creator, Don Mancini (2013). As before, the doll wreaks vengeance on anybody opposing it, this time including a priest, Father Frank (A Martinez). The focus is on Nica, a young woman in a wheelchair, who lives in a rather large Gothic house. She is sent Chucky doll but does not know where it came from. Her sister comes with her husband and daughter, trying to persuade her to sell the house and move into care. They are accompanied by Father Frank. There is a meal in the house, Chucky poisons the meal of the priest and he dies in a car crash.
Screen Priests, 315
__________________________________________________________________________
DARK WATERS
Campaigning lawyer against the DuPont Company, from the mid-1990s to 2017, Rob Billot, is at the centre of Dark Waters (2019, d. Todd Haynes). Later in the film it emerges that he is a Catholic, with discussions with his wife about Catholic schools for their children. They are also seen in a quiet Mass sequence, priest and congregation, and the singing of a St Louis Jesuits’ hymn Be Not Afraid (also sung by Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking). Interestingly there is a Protestant church sequence where Here I am, Lord, by the St Louis Jesuits, is sung.
Screen Priests, 217
___________________________________________________________________________
DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS
The title sounds more sinister than the film actually is (1948, d. Lance Comfort). However, the character of the title is a young Irish woman, servant in a parish, disliked by the gossiping biddies of the parish, who put pressure on the parish priest to send her away. One of the criticisms is that men are attracted to her.
In many ways, the servant, Emily, with a film credit introducing Siobhan McKenna, seems very diffident, especially when she goes to the fair, encounters a dashing young boxer, Maxwell Reed, who encourages her and then molests her, she clawing at his face. In the meantime, the parish priest arranges for her to go to Yorkshire to work on a farm.
The family welcome her, she seems at home, competent in her work. Again, she attracts men who presume on her flirting. She is resistant – even meeting the boxer again, resisting him and killing him. Two other men are killed. The lady of the house, played by Anne Crawford, dislikes Emily while the other woman in the house, played by a very young Honor Blackman, is welcoming.
There are also a mysterious sounds of organ playing coming from the church – although the audience has seen Emily playing the organ in Ireland. There are storms. There is a fire destroying the barn.
The film is not very well known, emerged from the immediate post-war British film industry, offers a fairly sympathetic picture of the parish priest, Liam Redmond, the harshness of Irish bitter Catholics – contrasting with the Anglicans in Yorkshire.
Screen Priests, 459
____________________________________________________________________
DAY OF WRATH. DZIEN GNIEWU
This is an arresting drama, made for Polish television (2019, d. Jacek Raginis-Krolikiwiecz)..There is a war setting, the Nazi occupation of a town, persecution and hunting of the Jews, a monastery as a source of consolation for the local inhabitants – and, as it emerges, a place of refuge for an escaping Jew.
The action takes place over one day, enabling something of a microcosm of the key issues of Poland during the war, the place of Catholicism, the treatment of the Jews.
One of the features of the film is music and chant. The monks in their monastery chant most of their dialogue, moving in procession throughout the rooms, the melodies of Gregorian chant, words of the Psalms but also words of their interior feelings, their perceptions of situations, their descriptions of action. (A most telling climax with chant as the monks sing of salvation history through the Old Testament into the New, and the Jewish refugee chanting his traditions of the presence of God.)
Everything seems normal enough in the monastery until a fleeing Jew, who notes that he is a carpenter, son of a carpenter, asks for refuge. He is accepted and given a habit. Several episodes follow, building up the drama, a young woman intruding into the monastery, demanding pearls adorning a statue, the visit of the leader of a local resistance movement, but, most importantly, the visit of the head of the Nazi occupation – who wants to see the prior (Radoslaw Pazura) , the dramatic revelation that the two of them had studied for the priesthood in Rome decades earlier.
Expectations are aroused about the intervention of the Nazi leader, the issue of the monks shielding a refugee, some revealing complications about the role of the woman in the set up, some frank talking between the Nazi and the prior, building up to a confrontation and threat to the monks. There is also dramatic presentation of the refugee, stripped of his habit, a loincloth, the Nazi having brought barbed wire for security on the monitory walls but putting it on the head of the carpenter, getting a cloth for a cloak, his whip in the man’s hand, an image of Jesus before Pilate.
A favourable comparison can be made with Xavier Beauvois’ classic film of monks facing issues of life and death, possible martyrdom, Of Gods and Men (2010). This drama seems to and satisfyingly – only for the audience to be jolted by an unexpected coda.
A film well worth seeing in itself – but great potential for dialogue between Jews and Christians.
Screen Priests, 62
________________________________________________________
DE GAULLE
A portrait of General de Gaulle, 1941-2 (2020, d. Gabriel Le Bornin), the establishment of the Vichy government and his dealings with Churchill and leading the Resistance. The film opens with the General and his family attending Mass and receiving communion – later the film shows the faith of De Gaulle and his visiting a church to pray.
Screen Priests, 51
__________________________________________________________________________
THE DEVIL’S CANDY
A horror film (2015, d. Sean Byrne) about an artist who hears voices in the walls of his house. The audience has also seen an insane fat man who kills his mother, and owns the artist’s house. The audience sees a crucifix on the wall and its being turned upside down. And priests? The audience hear the insane man in his motel room listening to a television broadcast with a priest explaining the action of the devil. There are also glimpses on television of papal ritual ceremonies.
Screen Priests, p. 315
__________________________________________________________________________
THE DRY
Celebrated Australian murder investigation in a country town (2020, d. Robert Connolly) indicates a Catholic atmosphere at a funeral and the gathering afterwards. The priest was played by Fr Eugene McKinnon, a priest of Ballarat diocese and parish priest of the town where The Dry was filmed. A genial brief presence and performance.
Screen Priests, 489
_______________________________________________________________
ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS
(2021, d. Adam Robitel), One of the older participants in the escape room drama is of more interest, Nate (Thomas Coquerel) who turns out to be a priest who had participated in the game where, with fellow priests, their faith had been tested in their attempts to escape entrapment. He feels guilty as the sole survivor. He is active in finding clues, even risking his life to find a path on dangerous tiles, one of which explodes and he has to be carried to safety. But, he will have the opportunity to atone for his behaviour, literally reaching out to save another drowning in quicksand.
Screen Priests, 315
__________________________________________________________________________
FATIMA
There had been a Hollywood version in the early 1950s, The Miracle of Fatima, and the British The 13th Day in 2009. But, here is a well-mounted account (2020, d. Marco Pontecorvo), filmed in Portugal, an international cast, and a reverential portrayal of the three children, their experience of the apparition of Mary, opposition, devoted pilgrims, the miracle of the sun (including some photographs of the event in October, 1917, and the glimpse of someone filming the event).
Older Catholics were brought up in the period of the popularity of Our Lady of Fatima, especially in the 1940s and the early 1950s, with the touring statue, devotions and processions. By this time, Catholics took our Lady of Lourdes and the apparitions to Bernadette for granted (and the popularity of the film, The Song of Bernadette in 1943). But, Fatima was nearer to our own times, just before our own times, the post-World War II years. And, of course, Fatima has become one of the major shrines, Marian shrines, in the world.
Lourdes had its sceptics and critics. Fathima has had its sceptics and critics. While there has been a recent increase in popularity of faith-films, audiences who don’t respond to faith-films will not be impressed by miracle stories like this. Interestingly, while the Internet Movie Database has many responses, some of them ridiculing the story as superstitious, many of those responding are older Catholics who are complaining about quite a number of details, old favourites for them, the three secrets, the conversion of Russia, the consecration of the world to Mary… which have not been explicitly included.
The value of this version of Fatima, for Catholics of a later generation not so familiar with apparitions (except, perhaps, with Medjugorje), is that the story is well situated in the political climate of Portugal in 1917, Republic, secular-minded, oppressive of religion and the Church. It is also well situated in the climate of World War I, the deaths of Portuguese soldiers and those missing in action (including Lucia’s brother). Back in the 1940s and 1950s, audiences were not so conscious of these real/actual settings.
The other aspect, important for many contemporary audiences, for younger Catholics, are the questions about Mary appearing to 3 small children, in the context of devotions of the time, the responses of the time. The screenplay provides a 1989 framework, a professor (Harvey Keitel) visiting sister Lucia at the Carmelite convent of Coimbra, Lucia in her 80s played by Sonia Braga. The Professor asks the expected questions which might be rising in the minds of questioning audiences: the reality of the apparitions in the language and iconography of the visionaries, of the period, the image of Mary and statuary, the language of rosary and prayer. There is also the issue of the penitential aspects of devotion at the time, self-inflicted penances in reparation for sinful offence or for emphasising prayers of petition. The professor also raises the issue of the effect of little children being the instrument of preaching peace and prayer rather than an adult appeal.
Stephanie Gil is very convincing as Lucia. And the two actors for the smaller children are also very effective, Jacinta and her spontaneous talk, Francesco and his not hearing the words of Mary. This is shown in the context of their village, poor and hard-working, and of the deaths and injuries during the war, the family support, Lucia’s mother harsh, her farmer father supportive. The local priest (Joaquim de Almeida) does the expected questioning, fearing that they are making everything up, but eventually believing them. It is much harder for the Mayor, with orders from Lisbon, with his anti-religious and anti-clerical stances (despite the challenges from his wife), trying to suppress the pilgrimage mentality. People from the village are at times sceptical, hostile, believers. They are desperate for miracles. And, even then, there was commercialism, children with their trays of rosary beads for sale to the pilgrims!
There is an odd evocative, nightmare sequence where Lucia dreams of a Pope and bishops walking through the devastation of the battlefield with guns firing at the Pope.
The 21st-century seems to be an age more sceptical about this kind of religious experience, so hallowed in the past. Here is an opportunity to give some consideration to the credibility, the question that there are more events and experiences than matter-of-fact realism believes in.
A number of photos appear during the final credits, a reminder that Jacinta and Francesco died during the Spanish flu epidemic, that Lucia spent many decades as a Carmelite nun, that the Popes have been enthusiasts of Fatima with their visits, that Pope Francis canonised Jacinta and Francesco and that Lucia’s cause is under consideration.
Screen Priests, 104
______________________________________________________________________________
FRANCESCO
This is the fifth major feature film focusing on Pope Francis. There was a 2015 Argentinian drama, Francisco, El Padre Jorge; there was the 2015 Italian drama, Call Me Francis; worldwide audiences watched The Two Popes, 2019, a fictionalised encounter between Francis, played Pryce and Benedict XVI, played by Anthony Hopkins. In 2019 there was a documentary by celebrated German filmmaker, Wim Wenders, Pope Francis, a Man of his Word, with limited release.
Francesco (2021, D. Evgeny Afineesky) completed filming in April 2020, featuring the Pope and an assistant on the dais altar in an empty piazza in front of St Peters. But, at the end, there is enthusiastic footage from countries all over Europe and the United States, people in lockdown, but coming to their windows and doors, waving, shouting, applauding – images of hope (not yet fulfilled). This film is a lively and challenging overview of Pope Francis’ seven years as Pope, 2013-2020.
The director is Russian and has made a number of documentaries, focusing on the war in Syria, conflicts in Ukraine, as well as a documentary about divorce. In this film, as with Wim Wenders’ documentary, the words of the Pope are significant, from public addresses, to more personal encounters, to interview statements. But, these films are not simply “talking heads” documentaries. The director and his assistants have done extensive research all over the world, finding a powerful range of footage from Pope Francis visits to different countries, to meeting significant personalities, and striking and vivid footage to illustrate the particular crises around the world of his seven years’ pontificate.
Instead of providing some background to Francis, his Argentinian and Jesuit backgrounds, his work as Archbishop in Buenos Aires, two key issues are initially highlighted. The first is that of climate change, the Pope’s document, Laudato Si, his visit to the Philippines in the wake of the severe typhoons. The second issue is that of migrants throughout the world, his visit to the refugees on the island of Lampedusa, refugees from Africa, refugees from Syria and visuals of the desolation of ruined Aleppo…
With this social consciousness in mind, the film then goes to the portrait of Francis, a sketch of his life, photos of his family, the story of their migration from Fascist Italy, growing up in Argentina, his vocation, joining the Jesuits, his role as Jesuit provincial – and quite a section later taking up the issue of accusations of collaboration with the Generals during the Dirty War, vocal criticism, examination of the issues, some critics retracting, the Pope explaining a more silent approach to work behind the scenes, followed by two years seeming exile away from Buenos Aires. It seems this period gave him time to reflect, to mellow his stances, to be conscious of the poor, something he took to his ministry as Archbishop.
The film provides quite a number of clips of Cardinal Bergoglio and his work in Argentina, continually with the poor, taking public transport, but also his strong interfaith links.
There is quite a challenge as the film documents Francis’ visits to conflict centres around the world, to the Central African Republic, to the island of Lesbos to meet the refugees, to Myanmar where diplomacy required no mention of the Rohingya, to Bangladesh and meeting the refugees. He also goes to Mexico denouncing walls that separate instead of building bridges which reunite (and a glimpse of President Trump). There is also the sequence of his addressing the American Congress (with Joe Biden, then VP, sitting behind the Pope).
There is a very personalised sequence where the Pope has a Zoom conference with those working on the American-Mexican border, especially his singling out unknown a nun, champion of the poor, and a close-up of his more affectionate language with her.
There are several other very personalised encounters, the three Muslim families that he brought back to Italy as an example of leaders welcoming refugees, his visit to them, their testimonies, the finding home and employment in Italy. Then there is the father who wrote a letter to Francis, giving it to him at an audience, explaining that he and his gay partner had three children, wanting the Pope’s assistance in their being accepted at the parish school. The Pope phoning the father, encouraging him, the film including a quotation of the Pope talking about recognition of gay men and women in society, of civil unions… The film does not quote, “who am I to judge?”, but includes this more ordinary episode.
The issue of women in the church is raised, a number of speakers, the Pope emphasising that women must have roles in the church – but, interestingly, for all the ceremonies, those assisting and servers are all male.
But, the treatment of sexual abuse by clergy is presented in a tantalising way, something like the old-fashion serials, the audience left with cliffhangers, wondering what and when the sequel will be. In fact, the subject does receive quite a lot of attention but in separate sections, increasing in dramatic tension, throughout the film. There is the sequence where the Pope seems to have lost his temper accusing critics of the Chilean Episcopacy of slander. Later, especially with interviews with Juan Carlos Cruz, the leader of the young men who accused the Chilean celebrity priest, Karadima, of years of abuse, presenting his case, being invited to the Vatican, wary that it was a PR exercise, meeting the Pope, hearing his apology, having a three hour conversation, present at a papal audience. Then there is the episode, surprising those in Chile, of summoning the Chilean bishops, firing a number of them, declarations about stricter investigations, the sending of official investigators to Chile, their 2,300 page report…
Juan Carlos Cruz is one of a significant number of authoritative talking heads throughout the film.
So, here is an opportunity, a two hour consideration of Pope Francis, growing awareness of all the world situations where he has intervened. But, there is a chance to see him at greater length in close-up, with people (as with his Jewish and Muslim long-time friends as well as leadership of churches and world religions), his body language, his unsteady walk, for instance, in Auschwitz, the close-ups when he is speaking officially, or in homily, or in personal encounters.
Not the last word. Not the last image. But an opportunity to make some kind of assessment, some kind of appreciation (and, one hopes, a good impression on those Catholics who have publicly expressed disagreement with or condemnation of, Francis) of an unanticipated Pope and seven years of unanticipated papal service.
Screen Priests, 639
_______________________________________________________________________
FROM THE VINE
A Canadian story (2020, d. Sean Cisterma) but it has its origins in Italy and it has its fulfilment in Italy, especially in the vineyards, the locality the Basilicata region of southern Italy, especially the hilltop Acerenza, one of the most picturesque and well preserved of those mediaeval cities (and filmed, frequently throughout the film, from spectacular helicopter angles). Before Migrating to Canada, the central character marries in an Italian Church wedding (priest uncredited).
Screen Priests, 403
______________________________________________________________________
GATES OF DARKNESS
(Not yet released in Australia). IMDb note: Gates of Darkness (2019. D. Don E. FauntLeroy): A dramatic mystery where a haunted teen endures a terrifying exorcism in the hopes of unlocking shocking secrets about the church and his family. Three priest characters appear in the cast list: Tobin Bell (who appeared in the Saw series as Jigsaw/John Kramer) as Monsignor Canell, and Brandon Beemer as Fr Dumal , with John Lobato as ‘Hooded Priest’.
The focus is on the exorcism with overtones of sexual abuse of the teenager in his past (by a family member and by a priest).
Screen Priests, 517
___________________________________________________________________________
THE GIRL IN THE BOX
Based on a true story of the abduction of a girl by a stalker with cult beliefs (2016, d. Stephen Kemp), the girl has a Catholic background, is sustained by her bible and rosary beads – and dreams of a confession to a priest (Shawn Wright).
Screen Priests, 344
____________________________________________________
THE GOOD CATHOLIC
The Good Catholic (2017, d. Paul Shoulberg) is a film for Catholic audiences principally. Those not familiar with or interested in the Catholic Church may find it too detailed and uninteresting.
The writer/director seems to have a very strong Catholic background, the possibility that he studied in a seminary, so detailed is his knowledge about priests and the church. The setting is Bloomington, Indiana.
But, for those who watch, there is a great deal to consider. If someone has grown up in the traditions of Catholicism and experienced the changes since the 1960s and the Vatican Council, they will be familiar with what has happened in the priesthood, many priests deciding to leave, many re-committing themselves and staying, and many others in dilemmas, day by day, asking how worthwhile their life is, the mundane aspects of the ministry, the loneliness, the need for human support… a fascinating opportunity to watch these priests.
The film is very strong in its presentation of the visuals of the church, icons, rituals… It is also accurate in its presentation of church language, a collage of the sacraments, the portrait of the priests. Danny Glover is the parish priest of 30 years, stern in his manner. He contrasts with John C. McGinley as Ollie, a Franciscan friar who works in the parish. The third priest is played by Zachary Spicer, younger, formal in his manner, still exploring his commitment and then challenged by a chance encounter with a singer, Wrenn Schmidt, who comes into his confessional saying that she is dying – which begins something of a challenging to-and fro, and Father Daniel having to think and pray through his vocation.
At the centre is Fr. Daniel, played by Zachary Spicer. He is not long ordained, does his duty in the parish, has a passion for jogging each morning, was influenced by his working-class father to consider being a priest. (A reminder of parents having vocations instead of the sons or, the unrealised pressure on the good son who wants to do the best to please his parents and so decides to study for the priesthood.) Early in the piece, there is a great collage of Daniel involved in each of the sacraments which Catholic audiences would well resonate with. Later Daniel accompanies Ollie, the Franciscan who works in the parish, to hospital and watches how he deals so empathetically with a dying man and his wife.
An opening scene has a young singer, Jane, casually comes into the confessional, tells Daniel that she is dying and asks for advice. Later, she returns. She is what might be called feisty, spur of the moment, whims, suggesting that they change places in the confessional and that he confess to her rather than to a priest – not a bad exercise for the priest! But, we discover he has a basic faith, that it is very much regulations-bound, rather cerebral – in fact, he is socially and pastorally gawky in his ingenuous responses.
So, the expected question about celibacy, questioning vocation, discovering human needs that should have been surfacing in seminary years – and, on the evidence of his pastoral manner, the seminary authorities should have been sending him out to meet, mingle, understand himself better and interact with people more maturely.
The other two priests in the rectory are quite a contrast. Danny Glover brings his quiet dignity to the role of Fr. Victor, 30 years in the parish, old-style in his way but tolerant, again in his way, of the others. He believes in a great attention to detail, talks about a sense of the presence of God and later confesses that because this is the way he functions, he expects everybody else to function in that way.
And then there is the Franciscan, Ollie, a wonderfully jaunty performance by John C. McGinley, which seems even better watching the second time around. He is cheerful, basketball mad, joking, with his choir, especially in a scene when they are rehearsing Amazing Grace and suddenly go into a jazzed up version, he gyratingly exuberant and Victor noting that it is near-blasphemous!
Commentators noted that the film is open-ended. Daniel goes through his probing of his vocation, especially grilled by Victor who is particularly demanding and rude towards Jane when she is invited to dinner at the rectory. For the audience, Ollie gives a wonderfully sympathetic homily about compassion, human rights, the pastoral nature of priesthood (an ideal sequence for parish discussions).
Daniel listens to Victor giving a homily based on John’s Gospel and letters, about seeing God, about the nature of love, Victor moving from his rather rigid judgements on these issues to confessing that it is very hard to distinguish one from the other.
Secular audiences who have sat through the film may well expect Daniel to leave. Catholic audiences, one hopes, listened attentively to the sermons as well as Daniel’s reflections and telling Victor that he was back. But, the drama of the ending is that Daniel goes to Jane’s house, hesitates, looks heavenwards, smiles, then removes his clerical collar. Is Daniel actually leaving? Or, given the sequences that have gone before (which many audiences might have listened to patiently but have unwittingly ignored) does it mean that Daniel and Jane will have a lasting friendship while he remains a celibate priest, a relationship that he jokingly referred to earlier as “a star-crossed platonic G-rated friendship”
Screen Priests, p. 602.
________________________________________________________________________
GRACE: THE POSSESSION
A familiar story of diabolical possession and exorcism, set in a rather strict Catholic community (2014, d. Jeff Chan). When Grace is born, there are mysterious diabolical aspects to her mother’s experience (later revealed at the end that she had been raped by the local priest, Father John (Alan Dale). Her strict and possessive grandmother, highly judgemental about God, morality, brings Grace back from college. Grace becomes involved with the church, Father John still present, but a Deacon serving in the parish (Joel David Moore). When grace becomes possessed, Father John and the Deacon calling in the local Bishop (Clarke Peters) and they perform the ritual, the revelation about Father John, the death of the sympathetic Bishop during the ritual, but the Deacon sacrificing himself so that the Demon will into him and liberate Grace. Grace has had a distinguishing scar on her abdomen, sign of the Demon entering her at birth. The Deacon, now the parish priest, is seen vested ready for Mass, and the audience glimpsing the diabolical scar on his wrist.
Screen Priests, p. 518
_______________________________________________________________________
HABIT
‘Blasphemous’ Film ‘Habit’ Starring Paris Jackson as Jesus Sparks Petition to Block Release
Nearly 300,000 people have signed a petition aiming to block the release of the independent film “Habit,” (2021, d. Janell Shirtcliff) starring Bella Thorne and Paris Jackson, in which Jackson plays a version of Jesus.
Thorne plays a street-smart, party girl who has a Jesus fetish and finds herself in a drug deal gone wrong. She’s able to escape danger by disguising herself as a nun. Multiple times in the film, Jackson appears as Jesus to her.
“A new blasphemous Hollywood film is predicted to come out soon depicting Jesus as a lesbian woman. The film ‘Habit’ stars Paris Jackson who plays the role of ‘lesbian Jesus.’ Distributors haven’t picked it up as of yet, so let’s please spread awareness and wake people up to the Christianophobic garbage that is spread nowadays, but is somehow accepted and praised by society,” reads the description of the petition.
However, there is no indication in the film’s current promotional materials or logline that Jackson’s depiction of Jesus is a lesbian.
A priest is listed in the cast: Fr Damon, played by Damon Lawler.
“Habit” is in post-production as it finished shooting before coronavirus shut down most projects in Hollywood in mid March. It currently does not have a release date.
Screen Priests, p. 314
______________________________________________________________________
THE HEALER
Opening in London and then moving to Nova Scotia, The Healer (2018, d. Paco Arengo) is the story of a man who has inherited a gift of healing – and does not want it. There is an initial Catholic tone for the film, an enjoyable scene in a church and a confessional, Alec, the potential healer taking refuge in the confessional from pursuing thugs, the parish (Jeremy Akerman) telling him that old parable-joke about the person caught in a flood, refusing help from the police, from a boat, a helicopter, drowning and then blaming God for not helping him, God explaining that he had sent all the means necessary. On that basis – Alec should go to Nova Scotia to discover his destiny.
The town in Nova Scotia has a sizeable population. The sizeable parish priest (Jorge Garcia) welcomes Alec but, confronting him at his home, collapses. Alec, dismayed, tries to revive him, puts him in a wheelbarrow (and he falls out) and settles him in his truck, delivering him back to the church. Some girls on an excursion had filmed the whole thing and given it to the police who arrest Alec.
The next morning, Fr Malloy phones the police. He is hale and hearty – later thanking Alec for raising him from the dead, explaining that he had lost his faith two years earlier, going through the motions in his dutiful, conscientious ministry. But now his faith has been restored. When Alec wants to go into the Church to confront God about his destiny, Father Malloy pushes him inside, that Alec has to do the praying by himself. Later, at the meeting where Alec is supposed to accept his gift in front of a packed congregation in the Church, it is Father Malloy who is presiding.
A warmly presented face of Catholic priests.
Screen Priests, 331/ 602
________________________________________________________________
HEART OF CAMDEN – THE FATHER MICHAEL DOYLE STORY
Martin Sheen narrates "Heart of Camden - the Story of Father Michael Doyle" (2020, d. Douglas Clayton) a beautifully shot and edited story about an Irish priest who came to Camden, NJ 60 years ago and never left. While most priests move onto the suburbs for their next assignment, Michael Doyle embedded himself in one of America's most violent cities, was arrested by the FBI for protesting the Vietnam war, was a true activist, provided schooling to children and housing available to hundreds, improved the environment by taking on big government's waste treatment plant (and inspired their leaders) and replacing concrete and abandoned lots with trees and gardens. By refusing to leave Camden, he changed the lives of countless citizens and children in the city's most impoverished neighborhood. Feedback includes "wonderful" "magnificent" "inspiring". IMDb Storyline.
Screen Priests, 351
_________________________________________________________________
HENRY V
Shakespeare’s play released as morale-boosting towards the end of World War II (1945, d. Laurence Olivier). Felix Aylmer is the Archbishop of Canterbury and Robert Helpmann the Bishop of Ely.
Screen Priests, p. 614. __________________________________________________________________
HENRY V
Kenneth Branagh’s version of Shakespeare’s play (1989) with Charles Kay as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Alec McCowan as the Bishop of Ely.
Screen Priests, .614.
_______________________________________________________________
A HIDDEN LIFE
This is the story of Franz Jagerstatter, (2019, d. Terrence Malick), the Austrian farmer who was prepared to go to prison, prepared to die for his convictions, the conscientious objector against Hitler and the war. While the film shows his Austrian Catholicism, his life of faith and devotion, the advice he seeks from the parish priest as well as from the Bishop, the screenplay does not name his Catholicism so explicitly. And, at the end, there is no indication that, in fact, Franz Jagerstatter was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007, a strong witness to the injustices of the war. Jagerstatter is the Catholic stance while Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor, is the Protestant witness to anti-Nazi defiance.
While the film is about lay men and women, their Catholic life in the town of St Radegund is important, faith, sacraments, the contact with the parish priest, discussions about faith and sense of duty. The priest accompanies Franz’s wife in her search for what has happened to her husband (credited priests, Tobias Moretti as Father Furthauer, the parish priest and Christian Sengewald, Fr Kretusberg).
Significant for Franz is his visit to the regional bishop to explain his case and conscientious objection to the Nazi regime. The sequence with the bishop of Linz (Bishop Fliesser, Michael Nyqvist) who offers advice, states that it is not his role to declare whether the situation is right or not, advocates free will and personal responsibility but also speaks of accommodation to the regime is a reminder of the stances taken (or not taken) by the German and Austrian bishops. The bishop urges signing of the oath of allegiance for the military. And in the background and sometimes alarmingly in the foreground is the hostility of the locals towards Franz, his wife and family.
Screen Priests, p. 61.
________________________________________________________________
HITLER: BEAST OF BERLIN
This propaganda film (1939, d. Sherman Scott (Sam Newfield)) was in production before the outbreak of World War II, released in October 1939. It focuses on members of the underground in Germany, their meetings and plans, their production and distribution of pamphlets, arrests, torture, sentenced to concentration camps.
Of interest, there is a parish priest, Father Popper, played by Frederick Newman. He is a member of the group, interesting in the picture of Catholic underground activity. He is also arrested, ridiculed by a guard in the concentration camp, dropping his rosary beads and the guard stamping on them as he walked away. And his making the sign of the cross, there is indication that other members of the group are Catholics.
Screen Priests, 58
________________________________________________________________________________
HOLY LANDS
The title has biblical overtones and some of it is set in Israel, (The Holy Lands, 2018, d. Amanda Sthers). The central character is Harry, played by James Caan, a retired cardiologist moving to Israel and deciding to raise pigs. He is culturally Jewish but not at all religious. He sees no difficulty in his pig farm and is particularly fond of a pet piglet. He is opposed by his neighbour, a strict rabbi, played by Tom Hollander. While there are initial clashes, gradually there is some understanding between the two, conversations, help against a fanatical priest, Priest Eusebius (Sebastian Castro) who wants to defy the pig farmer and makes claims on his land. In this way, the screenplay affirms both the cultural Jew as well as the religious Jew.
The fanatical priest is not in communion with the local church, appearing at Harry’s house with his eccentric band of followers, the hostility and defiance about their rights to the property, confronting Harry, Moshe helping him to confront them.
Screen Priests, 408.
___________________________________________________________________
HUBIE HALLOWEEN
An Adam Sandler comedy set in Salem at Halloween. A priest presides impatiently at a funeral (Michael Chiklis). He is part of the establishment in the city which bullies Sandler’s child-man, Hubie. At the end, an attempt to frighten Hubie, he is tied by his feet and is seen hanging upside down, the blood running to his face, pleading to be let down.
Screen Priests, 538.
__________________________________________________________________
THE IDEAL PALACE
The story of the 19th century French policeman who over decades gradually built a tomb, an eclectic mausoleum for his dead daughter, built from local stone which he collected on his rounds, The Ideal Palace (2018, d. Nils Tavernier). It still stands and is considered a work of art (with comparisons to Gaudi). The settings are from 1870 to the 1920s, a Catholic setting with a parish ;priests, religious ceremonies, weddings, funerals. The screenplay takes this for granted although the latter years of the century were times of fierce government anti-clericalism.
Screen Priests, p. 369.
___________________________________________________________________
L’INNOCENTE
Spanish adaptation of a Harlan Coban thriller (2021, d. Oriol Paulo). Catholic culture in the background. Once in the foreground when a corrupt policeman, initially worried by his crimes, goes to confession, the priest, Alberto Pascual. (The policeman descends further into his evil,)
Screen Priests, 384
___________________________________________________________________
THE INTERROGATION
We hear stories of young men who aspired to seminary life, Stalin studying in the seminary in Tblisi. This was the case for longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess. Hoess wrote a memoir before being executed. This Israeli film (2016. d. Erez Pery) a two-hander between Hoess and his interrogator, goes over Hoess being appointed by Himmler, the cruelty of the regime in Auschwitz. Hoess remembers his Catholic family, his fanatical father, an expectation that he become a priest – which implies an authoritarian image of priesthood.
Screen Priests, p. 408
___________________________________________________________________________
THE IRISHMAN
In recent times, Martin Scorsese is going back to some religious themes, especially, of course, in Silence. The Irishman (2019) is not just a portrait of Robert de Niro’s Frank Sheeran as a criminal. It is a portrait of a man who has sinned, has not really repented – does not seem to know how – but, has an Irish Catholic background, the Catholic sacraments recurring thematically throughout the film, baptism, marriage, funerals (and there is also a cameo from Scorsese’s Jesuit friend and adviser, James Martin SJ). But, there is a final Catholic sequence with a young priest talking earnestly with Frank Sheeran in the nursing home, discussions with his daughter, exploring possibilities of repentance, of forgiveness, of confession, a confession – truth and some atonement.
Screen Priests, p. 289
__________________________________________________________________________
IT MUST BE HEAVEN
Palestinian writer-director-actor, Elia Sulieman continues his focus on Palestine in It Must be Heaven (2019). He directed documentaries in the 1990s, especially about Palestine. He himself is a Palestinian who comes from Nazareth. Into the 21st-century and he made a number of comedies (which are worth recommending to those who might be coming to his work via this film; in 2002 there was Divine Intervention, in 2009, The Time that Remains). His comic style is observation through his character, ES, (memories of Jacques Tati and his mime in the eccentricities of ordinary situations.
He sets a tone at the beginning with a religious ceremony, robed Christian clergy Eastern in style, the faithful, many of them very young, a cross and a symbolic knocking at the door of the tomb – but the man behind the door is refusing to open, the celebrant taking off his crown, going behind the scenes, sounds of a fight, the door opening and the faithful invited in. We are not (never) sure what it means but it does set the comic tone.
For priests, we see nuns serving at an outdoor soup kitchen, a priest (who gets a credit, Romain Jouffroy) standing smoking and observing and clients bowing to him…
Screen Priests, p. 408
___________________________________________________________________________
JONAS/ I AM JONAS
Jonas/ I am Jonas (2018, d. Christophe Charrier) is the story of a gay man, seen in adolescence, then in his 30s. There is no priest part of the plot. However, during the adolescence sequences at school, a friend tells quite a detailed story of sexual abuse by a priest (topical in so many films) – then reveals to Jonas that he made it up and did not think Jonas would believe it.
Screen Priests, 550
__________________________________________________________________________
#JOWABLE
A Filipino light comedy which was very successful at the local box office. While many audiences enjoyed the characters and activities, many audiences and critics found it too slight, even trying. The focus is on a young woman, Elsa, who has failed in relationships.
Elsa learns some lessons, is supported when she gives birth to a son, has a final conversation with her mother who tries to bond with her, and she gets the baby baptised.
Many have found Elsa a difficult character to sympathise with, her self-preoccupation, her bluntness, her misjudgments.
The film was probably geared towards an audience the same age as Elsa and her friends. Of interest, the Catholic background in the Philippines is taken for granted, the role of nuns, their advice, church and prayer, the presence of the priest (uncredited) at a funeral and at a baptism.
Screen Priests, 410
_________________________________________________________________________________
THE KING
The King (2019, d. David Michod) takes up the events from the 15th century English wars with France dramatized by Shakespeare in Henry V. Clergy are involved in the invasion and giving advice to the king while assuring their own futures. Included are the Archbishop of Canterbury (Andrew Havill), the Prior of Westminster (Colin Thompson), a bishop (Phil Hodges) and a clergyman (Kristof Widder).
Screen Priests, p. 614.
___________________________________________________________________________
THE KITCHEN
The Kitchen, that is Hell’s Kitchen, (2019, d. Andrea Berloff) New York City, 1978, the world of thugs and crime where the men have been jailed and their wives step, effective and ruthless than their husbands. There is a Catholic background, especially ceremonies and funerals and the presence of priests. There is Fr Monaghan (Tom Patrick Stephens) representing the strong Irish background, the central characters named Brennan, O’Carroll, Walsh, O’Malley, along with some Quinns and Duffys – though there are some Corettis).
Screen Priests, p. 289
________________________________________________________________________
LAMBS OF GOD
Lambs of God is a television series (2019, d. Jeffrey Walker) on a novel by Marele Day adapted by actress, writer, director, Sarah Lambert. It was filled in rugged terrain in Tasmania.
While the setting is an island off the British coast, the time is 1999. However, the ruins on the island of a monastery are inhabited by three nuns, the order of St Agnes, with the play on words from Latin for lamb, agnus, and the lambs of God. The community is very strange indeed, feminist in its way, regarding the deity as female, prayer and Scriptures, but also practical life in tending lambs which are seen as the incarnation of deceased sisters. Essie Davis portray Sister Iphigeneia who is in charge. Ann Dowd, who made such an impact in The Handmaid’s Tale, is the elderly Sister Margarita. British actress, especially from British television, Jessica Barden, is a young ingenuous junior sister.
However, life on the island is disturbed by the visit of a rather self-important priest, Ignatius, Sam Reid. While he belongs to a rather hierarchical church, especially exemplified by a haughty John Bell as the Bishop, he brings a modern tone, the diocese wanting to claim possession of the island and turn it into a tourist resort. Ignatius tells the story of the prodigal son, an allegory for what has happened to him. The nuns tell their life stories through fairytales, and their weaving them into the garments?
While the situation and the characters are somewhat exotic, the development of the narrative is not what the audience might have expected, the imprisonment of Ignatius, harsh treatment, his dependence on his phone and the nuns taking it, almost brain-washing, the concern of his former drug addict sister and her reliance on the local police and the search for Ignatius, the Bishop’s intervention, his somewhat thug assistant priest, Bob (Damon Herriman), who infiltrates, the embodiment of the smarmy appearance of clergy, dealing with the police, at the AA meeting, talking with the sisters – and a villain, falling to his death.
Emphasis on Orthodoxy, authenticity: The church of the Bishop, formally dressed, formal and severe in his manner, interested in power and finance, not pastoral, worldly interests. The priests, classics, narrow outlook, superior, thug priests, and issues of vocations, ministry, obligations of celibacy?
Sister Iphigeneia is rather mysterious but audiences will begin to suspect aspects of the presence of the young sister. There is a further development went Sister Iphigeneia goes to confront her mother, Sigrid Thornton, to raise money to pay for the island. Certainly, off-putting images of the Catholic Church. Bizarre aspects of an enclosed spirituality. And a great deal of melodrama.
Screen Priests, 458
_______________________________________________________________________________________
THE LAST RIGHT
The Last Right (2019, d. Aiofe Crehan). IMDb plot summary. Brian Cox plays Fr Reilly but there is no mention of him in the summary or in any of the IMDb blog entries.
New York-based Daniel Murphy wakes on a flight home to Ireland for his Mum's funeral to find elderly passenger Padraig Murphy has died in the next seat. To his surprise the lonely Padraig had just listed him as his next of kin. In a bid to persuade his autistic brother Louis to return to New York with him, Daniel agrees to drive Padraig's remains across the length of Ireland, from Cork to Rathlin Island, to be buried with his brother. Hitching a ride in the passenger seat is the funeral home temp Mary, who is on a desperate mission to correct a drunken mistake. Meanwhile, the police realise Daniel has no business driving off with Padraig's body, and Daniel, Mary and Louis find themselves the focus of a nationwide manhunt. As they cross the country and the border, sparks ignite between Mary and Daniel. But when a long-buried family secret endangers the fragile truce between the brothers, Mary finds herself caught in the crossfire. With its uniquely Irish sense of humour, this is a heartwarming and bittersweet comedy drama about family, grief and finding home.
Screen Priests, 467
__________________________________________________________________________
THE LEGACY OF THE BONES/ LEGUADO DE LOS HUESOS
The Legacy of the Bones/ Leguado de los Huesos (2019, d. Fernando Gonzalez Molino) is the second in a trilogy of mysteries, police work and detection. They are all set in Basque country – with a background of some Spanish superstitions as well as Spanish Catholicism. There is a madness associated with the series of murders but they are to be seen in the context of a prologue from the 16th century when newly born daughters were offered in sacrifice.
There is also the Catholic dimension, this time with a psychologist priest who works in the local hospital and is an eminent member of Opus Dei.
At first the Opus Dei psychiatrist (Imanol Arias) is enigmatic, aristocratic manner, strong links with Opus (Aier Sola) and Rome and with the local Bishop (Alberto Gonzalez), strong traditionalist confidence. However, he works with the detective and emerges as more sympathetic in his work in the hospital and in his religious stances (especially in comparison with Opus Dei characters in Matador and Camino).
Screen Priests, p. 381
_______________________________________________________
LITIGANTE
The setting for this drama (2019, d. Franco Lolli) about a mother with terminal cancer, not wanting chemotherapy, and his daughter who does, is Colombia, city of Bogota. The issues and characters are the same for any urban setting around the world. However, there is the expected Catholic background, confined to the funeral service, the priest leading the congregation and the coffin into the church and his preaching a sympathetic sermon about the mother, her dying and God’s love. In the credits he is entered as Padre Uriel Sanchez.
Screen Priests, p. 388
______________________________________________________________________
THE LITTLE HOURS
An American variation on Boccaccio themes, (2017, d. Jeff Baena, with John C. Reilly as Father Tommasso). Not released in Australia. IMDb synopsis: On the run from the battle-seasoned Lord Bruno for sleeping with his wife, the handsome and willing servant, Massetto, flees to the safety of the woods during the warm and peaceful summer of 1347. There, after a chance encounter with the always boozy but merciful Father Tommasso, the young charmer will find refuge into his convent's sanctuary, on one condition: to pretend he is a deaf-mute. However, Massetto's tempting presence will unavoidably upset the already frail balance of things within the sexually-repressed female realm, as nun after nun desperately seeks an escape from their tedious way of life and an extra reason to molest the charming handyman. In the end, will those cloistered Sisters finally find out what they had been missing out on all these years? —Nick Riganas
Screen Priests, 616
__________________________________________________________________________
LUCA
(2021, d. Enrico Casarosa). In this Pixar animation, the setting is an Italian town in the 1950s. The priest is seen participating
Screen Priests, 356
__________________________________________________________________________
MAPPLETHORPE
(2018, d. Ondi Timoner.) Robert Mapplethorpe is not exactly a household name. However, he has a considerable reputation in the American art world and in the world of successful photographers. In some ways, his initial reputation had a kind of notoriety. He began by sketching, intending to be an artist, but became more interested in photography, especially when given a camera, finding that he had an eye for composition, for creativity with light and darkness (not using colour).
The notoriety concerned his interest in the male body, the naked body, male sexuality. While there were many changes in American society in the 1970s and 1980s, and Mapplethorpe’s photographs were admired and sold during those decades, there were still difficulties in their exhibition, raising the continued issue of the distinction between pornography and the obscene, the distinction between what is sexually arousing and what is more objectively considered human images of behaviour considered sexual.
The film offers a quick opportunity to understand Mapplethorpe and his background, some home movies excerpts, with a religious emphasis, his first communion, the staunch Catholicism of his parents. Home movie scenes show his childhood and growing up, especially the Catholic influence, his first Communion.
The screenplay includes a religious dimension with the visit of the parish priest (Brian Stokes Mitchell) who gave him his first communion. He has been sent by Mapplethorpe’s mother, a discussion about belief in God, Mapplethorpe saying that beauty and perfection were his sola
Screen Priests, 595
____________________________________________________________________
MARE OF EASTTOWN
A highly successful and critically acclaimed miniseries (2021, d. Craig Zobel). It is a murder mystery and investigation as well as a detailed portrait of a Pennsylvania town, a wide range of characters, focussing on Mare, a world-weary detective played by Kate Winslett. There is an extensive Catholic perspective, more of cultural Catholicism, though there is church attendance, especially at funerals.
One of the characters is the local pastor, Frank (Neal Huff), who is a cousin of Mare. He is presented as sincere and helpful. Of more dramatic interest is his deacon, Mark Burton (James McArdle) who comes under suspicion for the murder of a young girl he counselled. It emerges that he was transferred from a previous parish after criticisms of inappropriate behaviour with an underage girl. He suffers further suspicions when it emerges he was the last person the victim spoke to by phone. He has also taken possession of the girl’s bike and throws it into the river. Word of his previous accusations emerge and he is assaulted by locals and taken into custody. He is supported by Frank and the two discuss his situation. Ultimately, he is cleared. He also decides that he will stay in Easttown.
This is a more extensive portrait of a deacon in films than has been usual.
Screen Priests, 351
___________________________________________________________________________
THE MARK OF THE DEVIL/ LA MARCA DEL DEMONIO
The title and the rough, small-budget style are reminiscent of the range of be horror films produced in Spain, especially in the 1970s. This is a Mexican production, although its star is the Spanish, Eduardo Noriega, who also was one of the producers of the film.
Although the screenplay makes fun of the Hollywood conventions in films, this production is definitely in its tradition, opening with a young boy in paroxysms with a bearded elderly priest (Charles Lake) performing an exorcism, his peasant parents very concerned. The priest takes the body away for burial but the boy revives in the back of the car, the priest throws him down a cliff and drives off.
The main action of the film takes place 30 years later. There is a focus on a Professor of ancient languages who receives the gift of an ancient manuscript, whose text and images are reminiscent of the Necronomicon. One of her daughters opens the book, suggesting that her other sister, there with her boyfriend, read some of the texts – and there is suddenly a wind and some kind of sense of supernatural presence.
After going out dancing, taking ecstasy, the young woman sleeps for a day and then begins to exhibit ominous signs. The older sister is concerned and discovers that there are no exorcists in Mexico but that a certain priest would be available to do something.
The audience has seen him in action, addicted to heroin, dependent on supply from a mysterious man, always wearing a hat, echoes of spaghetti westerns. He also has strong powers, especially in violent confrontations. It soon emerges that this is the young boy of the opening grown into an adult, exorcised. There is a later flashback to the young boy in the church, the priest who exorcised him hanging crucified in the church. The young priest takes him under his wing.
The priest, Tomas, Eduardo Noriega, goes to visit the disturbed girl, is confronted by the professor and her easy-going husband.
Ultimately, rituals, both parents flung around the room, dying, both sisters becoming haunted. Ultimately, the strange man is able to extract the evil – and the two girls drive away from home.
This is the kind of film that is made specifically for fans of possession/exorcism films, a blend of the serious as well as some tongue-in-cheek over the top characters and effects.
Screen Priests, p, 315
_______________________________________________________________________
MENENDEZ, EL DIA DEL SENOR, PARTE 1/ MENENDEZ.
Since the 1970s, especially with The Exorcist and its sequels, there have been many films, variation on William Friedkin’s film, variations, parodies, explorations of horror and demonic possession.
This film is more modest. (2020, d. Santiago Alvarado Ilarri) It takes place over three days, culminating on Sunday, the day of the Lord.
The film begins provocatively, a tantalising sexual dream and the priest, Menendez (Juli Fabregas), waking in dread. In his dreams, there is an indication that he is responsible for the death of a boy. He has been in prison, the newspaper saying that he was the victim as well as the boy being a victim. He is now released, living alone in a vast house, full of antiquarian detail.
A woman comes in to clean the house, Marisa, obviously devoted to the priest but, she appears provocatively in his dreams, and she is the mother of the dead boy – the audience realising that he did not survive an exorcism. It appears that Menendez has had a priestly career as an exorcist.
He is visited by an old friend, a former drug addict, who comes to renew acquaintance and friendship but, especially, to plead to Menendez to perform an exorcism on his daughter. Reluctantly, the priest agrees, and the father comes with his daughter leaving her in the house.
Menendez’ methods of exorcism are not exactly those familiar from the previous films. At a meal, he seems to be leading the young woman on, and turns on her, beginning a series of psychological and physical confrontations, the use of physical violence – which may seem to some audiences extreme. The process takes a long time. However, the Demon starts to manifest itself in the behaviour of the young woman, in her words, and her attack on the priest. He continues his harsh treatment of her which frightens his friend when he returns to see how the exorcism is progressing. The friend is given several texts to read during the ritual but falters, compassion for the physical state of his daughter. However, she turns on him, provocative sexual assaults which distress her father.
The woman and the Demon get the better of the priest and her father, tying them up. However, the priest does get loose which sets up a final violent confrontation. It is successful and the father is able to take home is daughter, looking so frail and diminished after the self-assertion and violence she manifested while possessed.
Menendez receives various phone calls – and, at the end, there is a mystery about the calls, seemingly God on the other end of the line.
The film has the title of Part 1 – but in the careers of the director and the actors, there is, as yet, no indication of the making of Part 2.
Screen Priests, 315
______________________________________________________________________
A MILLION LITTLE PIECES
A grim film about addiction, consequences, rehabilitation (2018, d. Sam Taylor-Johnson), reference to another addict being assaulted by a priest when she was young. However, the central character visits a priest, the founder of the Rehabilitation Centre, Fr David (Albert Malafonte) who welcomes him, they have a conversation rather than a confession.
Screen Priests, 352
_________________________________________________________________________
MISS MEADOWS
Miss Meadows (2014, d. Karen Leigh Hopkins) is a brief black comedy. Katie Holmes plays the chirpy and breezy, a very proper young woman, a teacher. However, haunted by her mother, she is a very active vigilante, pro-active. She is religious, seen in a choir, relating to a sheriff who is a recovering Christian. But, concerning priests, she encounters a sexually abusive priest and, as he declares his doing God’s work, she shoots him.
Screen Priests, p.550
___________________________________________________________________________
MOLE AGENT, The
Absence of a priest: The Mole Agent (2020, d. Maite Alberdi) is a documentary set in a home for the aged in Chile. A comment on the pastoral dimensions. This film highlights how wonderful some companionship is, some listening, some sharing, not leaving people alone in their loneliness. This is Chile, there are lots of Catholic images, prayers, but no sign of Catholic pastoral workers visiting, no sign of a priest, even at a funeral ceremony.
Screen Priests, 387
MRS AMERICA
Mrs America is a nine-part television (2020) series on women’s movements in the 1960s and 1970s, those for Equal Rights legislation and those opposed to it, political groups, links with elections, the highlighting of sexual moral issues and controversies.
No priests appear on screen as such. However, there is a powerful sequence in the episode, Jill (d. Laure de Clemont Tonerre), where Phyllis Schlafley, the Catholic conservative leader, goes into a confessional, the camera focused solely on her. She confesses many of the standard sins quickly acknowledged in those days. However, she takes the opportunity to question God’s love for her, approval for her work and moral stances because she has realised that her oldest son is homosexual. She tries to help him afterwards by urging him to self-sacrifice.
In the Houston sequence (d. Janicza Bravo) at the Women’s Convention in Houston, November 1977, one of the many stands for visitors to inspect has a nun (in full old-style habit) celebrating the Eucharist, giving communion to one of the delegates, explaining her stances and action (quite severely) through the equality of men and women.
Not so much screen priests as offering viewers the opportunity to reflect on the role of priest in confession and Eucharist.
Screen Priests, p. 359
__________________________________________________________________________
MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA
Agatha Christie spent several years on dig sites in the Middle East, her husband, Max Mallowen, being an archaeologist. Murder in Mesopotamia (2001, d. Tom Clegg) takes advantage of her experience, archaeological digs in Iraq. One of the expert archeologists is a priest (Christopher Hunter) with an international reputation, seen at work, collaborating with the others on the dig, especially assisted by a young boy, encountering a stranger and then disappearing, exposed as working on forgeries. Poirot checks by telegram and finds that the real priest was at his monastery, had never left.
Screen Priests, p. 24
_________________________________________________________________________________________
NAKED
Marlon Wayans does spend an amount of this film naked but that is part of the joke rather than anything lewd (2017, d. Michael Tiddes). He is trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario, about to be married, victim of conniving friends, wanting clothes and to get to the church on time. Which means repetition of Church scenes, everyone amazed, including the priest (Rick Fitts), but everyone more accepting as the Groundhog Days recur.
Screen Priests, 424
___________________________________________________________________________
A NEW YORK CHRISTMAS WEDDING
At first a familiar romance (2021, d. Otoja Abit) but then a move into alternate world and a same-sex marriage drama. Two middle-aged women, friends since childhood, intend to marry and visit the parish priest of 23 years who has known them well. They discuss the possibility of marrying in the church. He is hesitant, conscious of traditions. However, at Mass, reading from I Corinthians 6 (and its severity on depraved behaviour), the congregation standing as if it were the gospel, he then invites him to sit, invites the two women and other parishioners who are in same-sex relationships on to the sanctuary. He decries condemnations and emphasises the universality of love. Some parishioners walk out. However, as a symbol, he decides to give communion to each of those on the sanctuary as a sign of love.
The priest, Fr Kelly, played by Chris Noth who executive-produced the film, listens to quotations from Pope Francis on the issue, and, especially, a television clip of Pope Francis meeting one of the young men from Chile who was abused by the church and the Pope saying that his sexual orientation was the way he was born. And the priest is present for an exuberant wedding party afterwards and enthusiastic speeches.
When the central character returns to the present, she visits the Church to find Fr Kelly but is told that he was retired long since after officiating privately at same-sex weddings. It is interesting that there are 48 comments on the IMDb blog, only two of them making reference to the Catholic church, one just noting, as an atheist, there is a Catholic context. The church and same-sex issues are not mentioned by the bloggers.
Screen Priests, 257
_____________________________________________________________________________
NINTH STREET
(1999, D. Tim Rebman, Kevin Willmott). The inhabitants of a deteriorating section of 1968 Junction City, Kansas known as "Junk City" bemoan their existence and revel at the history of their neighborhood during its 1940's heydays when legendary jazz musicians regularly played its clubs. In 1968, the area has diminished to strip clubs and juke joints inhabited by Vietnam War draftees that pass through from nearby Fort Riley. Heads of the group include a wino who lost a leg in WWII, a taxi dispatcher, a saloon owner, and a crazed bag lady. The younger generation is represented by a young prostitute who is trying to get off the streets, but is forced to continue to work by a no-good boy friend and the need to feed her baby. Martin Sheen also appears as a white minister who prefers the people in the area over his own congregation. —John Sacksteder <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; (Martin Sheen's role is basically a cameo and was done as a favor to Queen Bey (who plays the bartender).
Screen Priests, 351
_______________________________________________________________________________
NO SLEEP ‘TIL CHRISTMAS
This is a romantic comedy, (2018, d. Phil Traill) set around Christmas time, Lizzie, businesslike, controller, engaged to Joshua, surgeon. She cannot sleep – which has an effect on marriage preparations, the usual, church, bridesmaids… and the priest (Kevin Hanchard).
Screen Priests, 352
_________________________________________________________________________
THE NOVITIATE
In some ways it is a surprise to find this film (2017, d. Maggie Betts) made and released in the 2010s. It is in the tradition of films of the past about nuns and convents but it reflects the changes in the latter part of the 20th century, after the Second Vatican Council, and the decline in numbers joining religious orders.
But the main serious film about convent life was the 1959 The Nun’s Story, released just after Pope John XXIII announced preparations for the Council. It showed what pre-Council convent life was like, the strengths, the discipline, the numbers, and the challenges which led to Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn perfect in the role) leaving the convent.
This film is set in the first half of the 1960s (the same period as for Doubt with Meryl Streep). The setting is Tennessee, a large convent, traditional in its look and in its way of life. The superior is played with her usual strength by Melissa Leo, with self-assurance covering some self-doubt as she rules the community with some severity. The local Archbishop, Denis O’ Hare, communicates the decisions of the Council, writing letters, not acceptable to the superior, and his eventually threatening her if she does not implement the changes, with dismissal. A number of priest characters appear in flashbacks and at ceremonies in the convent. Some visualising of the changes, Masses in English, priests facing the congregation, equality with the laity.
Screen Priests, 156
____________________________________________________________________
THE OLD GUARD
The Old Guard (2020, d. Gina Prince-Blythewood) is a graphic novel version of immortal warriors who live on to right wrongs. A graphic flashback to two of the women immortals accused of witchcraft by the Inquisition, to be burned at the stake, but one locked alive into an iron lung apparatus and dropped into the sea. As expected, they are accompanied by a fanatical friar bent on executions.
Screen Priests, p. 617.
______________________________________________________________________
PAIN AND GLORY/ DOLOR & GLORIA
There have been a range of priests in the films of Pedro Almodovar, some satiric, some serious and quite a range amongst the teachers in Mal Educacion (2004). In this autobiographical story (2019), his elderly mother is devout, rosaries, mantillas. At one stage, reminiscing with a friend, he recalls a priest singling him out, his years of the choir but not having to attend classes in geography and other subjects (echoing the priests and boys singing in Mal Educacion).
Screen Priests, p. 384
____________________________________________________________________
PALM TREES IN THE SNOW/ PALMARES EN LA NIEVE
The film (2015, d, Fernando Gonzalez Molina) moves from 1954 to the late 1960s to the early 21st century. The setting is Equatorial Africa, the Spanish colony, the presence of the Spaniards and Latin culture, an imposition on the locals many of whom adapt, but the majority with their traditional beliefs and practices having to work in the fields and in industry. There is some unrest during the 1950s, leading to independence movements and the declaration of a republic in the mid-1960s. It is in this context that the story focuses on a Spanish family, the patriarch living in Africa and dying there, his two sons coming to work the plantations. In the present the two older men are dying and their daughters investigate the past. There is the presence of a priest (Ramon Agirre) in the 1950s, the atmosphere Spanish Catholics, his presence at the family meals, his comment about good behaviour, his later trying to help the wounded man, at the wharf, his leaving the colony, his explanations about the past and celebrating the central wedding.
Screen Priests, 384
_______________________________________________________________________
PANE E…, SCANDAL IN SORRENTO
A popular Italian romantic comedy of the 1950s (1955, d, Dino Risi), with Vittorio de Sica and Sophia Loren. The hero has romance issues and seeks advice from his priest brother (Mario Carotenuto), comic touches on Italian priests of the 1950s.
Screen Priests, 396
_____________________________________________________________________
PERFECT OBEDIENCE
The case of the founder of the Mexican congregation, The Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel, is a great scandal of the Catholic Church. Despite many rumours during his lifetime, he was not condemned by Pope John Paul II. Later, however, he was condemned by Benedict XVI and ordered to retire to a monastery. He died there two years later at the age of 88.
Perfect Obedience (2014, d. Luis Urquiza), the Mexican dramatisation of his case opens with that sequence. It also focuses for some time on a young man – audiences realising that he was a principal victim.
The setting is in the 1960s and 70s, the time of Pope Paul VI. The place is a junior seminary where a young lad, Julian, who comes from a very staunch Catholic background, begins his seminary training with a new group and some older students. The behaviour of the students is rather more open, concerning sexuality, than that of students in English-speaking minor seminaries.
There is a great deal shown of the seminary, the boys, their ages, the new recruits, the older boys, juvenile behaviour, preoccupation with sex, the priests and the supervision, the desire to save souls, putting the clergy on a pedestal, not criticising superior, the emphasis on doing God’s will (perfect obedience), the arrival, wearing soutanes, in the Chapel, the dormitories, the showers, the girls assisting with the cooking, the episode of the boy ogling the statue of Mary.
The regime is re-created in detail, the priests, on the pedestal, speaking religiously, piety, the religiosity of the atmosphere, classes, sports and soccer, supervision of the showers, the priest getting Julian to shout and express his anger.
Juan Manual Bernal portrays Father Angel, the founder and superior of the Crusaders of Christ. He presents well, speaks well, exhorts priests and students piously and religiously. Julian settles in, sometimes disturbed by the behaviour of the other students, but then chosen, groomed by Angel. The film portrays with some intensity the process of grooming by a predator.
Father Angel’s name is ironic. He is concerned about appearance, well-dressed, smile, the status of being superior, the touch of superciliousness, meetings, exhortations, piety and religiosity, classes, Holy Thursday ceremony and the washing of the feet, an occasion for his looking at Julian. He values his in high society, the women, the benefactors, the Papal medals, his interest in money.
The film traces the effect on Julian, his age, breaking the contact with home, having seen him initially with his family, pious Catholics, the meals, the games, the siblings, their pride in his becoming a priest, then his joining the activities the boys, the sexy magazines, smoking pot. He is the perfect candidate for grooming. Angel shows his worldly manner while talking spirituality, a context for his choosing Julian, plausible talking, sanctifying his behaviour, moving Julian to his special quarters. There is the revelation of a similar past relationship with Alberto, a sequence of Angel in pain and calling Alberto to help him leading to masturbation. He plays off Alberto with Julian. And Julian is now installed as the favourite.
There is also something unhealthy about a number of the priests. They are very pious on the one hand. Several of them also have some sexual problems. The film serves as a challenge to formation issues in the church, the completely inappropriate behaviour of some of the clergy, the processes of cover-up.
Screen Priests, 556
_________________________________________________________________________
PIXIE
There is an instant caption: Once Upon a Time in the West, in red. Then, in bold white, is added: Of Ireland. So we know we are in the land of leprechauns and of the IRA.
This is one of those enjoyable adventures where it is probably best to leave some moral sensibilities at the door. It is not meant to be taken literally – or is it? The Irish can spin a yarn and this is what this film is, a complicated yarn with so many twists and turns, so many characters with dubious and double values, and betrayals galore.
And, of course, Ireland has been a Catholic country with Catholic traditions and pedestals for the clergy. These come tumbling down pretty fast, also an indicator of what is to come. Two young robbers gatecrash a clerical meeting, local Irish, visiting clergy from Afghanistan – but, all is definitely not what it looks like, machine guns drawn, and down go the clergy who, in fact, were negotiating a huge drug deal, 15 kilos.
Meanwhile, down at the bar, we are introduced to Frank and Harland (Ben Hardy and Daryl McCormack), old friends, eye on the girls, the drugs, Pixie giving them the come on. Pixie is a photographer and Frank ends up as a model, Harland seeing the threat from the old boyfriend, crashing into him – finishing up with a seeming corpse in the boot, the three on the run.
Meanwhile, there is a complication of Pixie’s father, discovering the dead man in the car, his being a gangster, past IRA gunrunner with Father Hector McGrath (Alec Baldwin of all people), devoted to his daughters, tolerating his hefty son from a former marriage, but delighting in being a chef. There is also the sadness of the death of his wife, and Pixie visiting her grave.
Which all leads to more shenanigans, dad in pursuit, his hiring of a vicious hitman from IRA days, Seamus (Ned Dennehy), Frank and Harland relying on their friend who works at the airport, Daniel (Chris Walley) who suggests taking the drugs to his main dealer, his uncle (Dylan Moran). Uncle tries to be too smart but doesn’t count on Pixie and a swift knife with a thrust to his hand!
Pixie and co-on the run, eventually caught, finding out the truth about Pixie’s mother’s death. Audiences who were surprised, may be dismayed, by the sacerdotal revelation of drug dealing, there is an even more hyped-up climax, more priests (Pat Shortt, Frankie McCafferty), Father Hector McGrath in vengeance mood, but always acknowledging God, an arsenal of machine guns, old-style habited nuns (of the severest Irish visages), a huge church shootout, but Pixie and her friends saved by the intervention… More twists than the coastal highways.
Screen Priests, 470
____________________________________________________________________
THE POSSESSION OF HANNAH GRACE
While there is later mention of the church and exorcisms, the only section focusing on clergy and exorcisms is the prologue, two priests present (Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Guy Clemens), a young woman, Hannah Grace, possessed and with contortions, her disturbed father present, one of the priests held by the demonic presence and impaled on a crucifix, the other levitating and suffocating, saved only by the father actually smothering his daughter. The rest of the film is the equivalent of a kind of ghost/zombie haunting story (2018 d. Diderik van Rooijen.)
Screen Priests, p.518.
___________________________________________________________________________
PRISON BREAK
In a brief film about tuna fishermen, the hero is concerned about a woman and her son. The local priest (Irish-accent, Thomas Loudun) speaks supportively, especially the boy as the subject of bullying.
Screen Priests, 38
__________________________________________________________________________
PROMISED
The ‘Promised’ (2019, d. Nick Conidi) of the title refers to promises of marriage, not by the partners who commit themselves but by their parents, when they were little children, a marriage arrangement. One of the characters hearing about arranged marriages remarks that this happened only with Indian families. On the contrary, this is an Italian Australian story. The initial setting is 1953, dominant parents. It moves to 1969, assertive children. There is a marriage ceremony with the priest and rituals, but a critique of arranged marriages.
Screen Priests, p. 484
________________________________________________________________________
PUZZLE
in Puzzle (2018, d. Marc Turteltaub), Agnes, a sympathetic Kelly Macdonald, married for almost 20, living a rather humdrum suburban life, doing things for others, including helping in the local parish with Father Katush (Barry Grodin), with several scenes at the church, the family going to church, the priest friendly and helpful, comments about lessening numbers for Confession, receiving the ashes on Ash Wednesday. The rest of the story focuses on Agnes, her love of puzzles and entering a jigsaw competition – and the repercussions on her life and marriage.
Screen Priests, p. 359.
___________________________________________________________________________
RATTLESNAKE
An unusual horror feature (d. Zack Hilditch) with supernatural overtones. A mother driving through Texas stops and her little girl is bitten by a rattlesnake. A mysterious woman appears at the hospital and heals her – but there is a price, a soul for a soul, and the mother has to kill someone before sunset. Out in the desert, she experiences a number of warnings and urgings, including a priest (Joshua Kimble), flames, standing outside his church in flames.
Screen Priests, 518
_________________________________________________________________________
RESISTANCE
Resistance (2019, d. Jonathan Jaubowicz) is the story of celebrated mime, Marcel Marceau, and his work during World War II, supporting orphans, especially refugee orphans from Germany, taking them through the Alps to freedom in Switzerland. At the outbreak of World War II, citizens of Strasbourg, on the French/German border, were ordered South. They arrived in Limoges, then with further German occupation, moved to Lyon.
The way of concealing the presence of the orphans was to engage the collaboration of a local parish priest (Philip Lenkowski), given willingly, hiding the children and making them part of the church choir. While Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon” is seen executing hostages, the background is of the children singing Ave Maria. When Barbie’s wife arrives in France, the sounds of torture reverberate through the walls of the hotel – and in this context the audience is told that the priest was tortured, gave up the information that the children were on a train going to the Alps for freedom. The extra significance of the priest’s help was that the children were Jewish orphans.
Screen Priests, p. 53
__________________________________________________________________________
RIDE LIKE A GIRL
Ride Like a Girl (2019, d. Rachel Griffith). An Australian favourite, the story of the Payne family and racing, Michelle Payne the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup, 2015. The Payne family is Catholic. They live in Ballarat, a very Catholic town in Victoria (and also the site of extensive sexual abuse in schools and parishes by local clergy and Christian Brothers).
The Paynes are seen at Mass, the earnest homily, a Catholic wedding and reception, the sadness of a funeral, at school at the Loreto College, discussions with the Irish-accented and sympathetic parish priest. It is the Catholic Church of the old days, good old days, the old Catholic ethos.
Screen Priests, 486
_________________________________________________________________________
ROLLING TO YOU, TOUT LE MONDE DEBOUT
Two priests for the price of one! At the opening of this comedy (2018, d. Frank Dubosc ) about disabled people and romance, there is a funeral sequence where the elderly priest (Francis Coffinet) goes on and on in his eulogy of the deceased (over-emphasising her appeal and lifestyle).
A solution for the end of the story where the hero has pretended to be wheelchair bound like the woman he has fallen in love with is that he should go to Lourdes and ‘be cured’. The common-sense priest (Francois Xavier Demaison) from Lourdes, takes him aside, knows that he is a fake because his shoes are well-worn, talks to him about Lourdes, the rarity of miracles, explaining the Lourdes is a place of pilgrimage where people find faith, rediscover faith – and that they do not deserve to be disillusioned by his manipulation.
Screen Priests, 380
________________________________________________________________________
A ROSE IN WINTER
This is a portrait of Edith Stein (2018, d. Joshua Sinclair), philosopher, activist, Jewish, died in Auschwitz, who entered Carmel as Sister Benedicta Teresa and is now venerated as a saint under that name and as a patron of Europe. A young writer for the New York Times in 1963 is offered the opportunity to work on a file on Edith Stein. Busy, he is reluctant but sees her photo. This is his story but in flashback it is the story of Edith Stein. The journalist’s name is Michael Prager. He immediately goes to Europe and begins a series of interviews with a number of people close to Edith Stein
Michael Prager also visits the priest, now a bishop in the 1960s (Peter Linka), who gives the background to Edith’s life as a Catholic, her reading and prayer, feeling that she had found a destination in her spiritual journey, taking the rise of Hitler and his demagoguery as a sign that she should enter Carmel, with a scene of her final profession and its ritual, her commitment.
Screen Priests, p. 53
___________________________________________________________________________
SAINT FRANCES
Not a priest film (2019, d. Alex Thompson), The story of 34 year old Bridget (Catholic upbringing from her lesbian couple parents) who has a sexual liaison, pregnancy and abortion. She finds congenial company with six-year old, Frances.
During the party that follows a baptism, Bridget wanders into the now-empty church where the ceremony took place and finds Frances occupying the priest’s side of a confessional. The two enact a mock confession, the implicit message of which seems to be that, while thoroughly alienated from the Church, Bridget also is somewhat haunted by it.
Frances calls Bridget out for lying a lot, an accusation that earlier scenes have demonstrated to be true.
Screen Priests, p 355
_________________________________________________________________________
SERVANTS
Servants ( 2020, d. Ivan Ostrochovsky) is an arresting title for this film. The setting is a seminary in Bratislava, Slovakia, 1980. The question immediately arises: are the seminarians servants of the church, servants of the state? Conflicts?
One of the co-writers of the screenplay, British writer, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, also wrote the screenplay for such striking films as Ida. Audiences of Central European films will immediately make a connection to Ida, Catholic themes in difficult times, black-and-white photography, brevity of the narrative, (Servants connecting with Ida and the Polish cinema, means connections with Polish films about clergy, clerical abuse in Kler, a young man masquerading as a priest in a village in Corpus Christi.)
The black-and-white photography is quite striking, use of light and shadow, unexpected angles, like an aerial shot of seminarians kicking a football. The editing and pace are quite different. Often there is a tableau-like presentation of characters and situations, some time before the characters actually speak, scenes reminiscent of silent cinema. With the editing, sometimes swift, audiences are asked to supply from their imagination and response some details as to the characters and the events. The musical score is quite wide ranging, suggestive, piano tones, orchestral during the final credits.
All this has a rather different cumulative effect on the audience.
The film opens with sinister events, depositing a dead body under an overpass. The sequence recurs later in the film, the murder of dissident priest from the seminary. However, the film is mainly about two young men, a blessing from their parish priest, a train journey to Bratislava, a rather formal entry into the seminary, their beginning their training.
The film has a lot of detail about the seminary and the staff (Milan Mikulak, Vladimir Strnisko), an unexpectedly large number of seminarians, the gatherings, instructions by the seminary Dean, meetings with the spiritual director, cassocks and formality, yet moments of sport, football, trampoline, and a table tennis match involving up to ten seminarians moving in a circle and successive men batting the ball. There is isolation of the students, the nuns present but only as staff, no female presence – and a glimpse dancing and the seminarians in pairs.
However, some of the seminarians listen to Radio Free Europe, part of the underground church, in contact with the Vatican. On the other hand, there is a Catholic group, named Pacem in Terris after the encyclical by Pope John XXIII, more of a compliant group led by the Dean.
Ultimately, the two young men are caught up in the political-religious conflicts, one making contact with dissidents, a scene with a rebel group of laity meeting and reading quite apocalyptic texts, some women present (the only women in the film apart from the nuns who work in the seminary). Then the seminarians are urged to participate in a hunger strike against the authorities who have collected all the typewriters from the seminary, trying to track down who composed dissident notices.
There is a sobering sequence when one of the young men is arrested, interrogated by a panel, standing naked before them, threatened with the draft, insinuations about his mother wanting him to be a priest. Both the young men are forced to take stances, one tragic, the other leaving the film with an open ending. (Audiences know that within the decade, the Soviet Empire will have collapsed with changes in Slovakia.)
A very interesting and challenging film, an addition to studies about Catholic priests.
Screen Priests, 391
_________________________________________________________________________
SEVEN SINNERS/ DOOMED CARGO
An entertaining crime investigation (1936, d. Albert de Courville), from Monte Carlo to England, Americans, French, and a huge train wreck. There is an international syndicate involved in arms deals – exploiting a local priest, Fr Blanchard (James Harcourt) and his innocent group, but a master criminal disguised as a priest.
Screen Priests, p. 330.
_________________________________________________________________________
THE SIGN PAINTER
A Latvian story of World War II and German occupation (2020, d. Viesturs Kalriss). A young sign painter and his fiancée visit a church to consult a priest about their marriage. It is celebrated. A small sequence.
Screen Priests, 52
_______________________________________________________________________
STATELESS
A well-received and awarded television series (2019, d. Emma Freeman, Jocelyn Moorhouse) on migrants and camps in Australia. It includes a sequence of a Mass celebrated in the camp, the hymn, Panis Angelicus, being played.
Screen Priests, p. 486.
_________________________________________________________________________
TORO
A film about Spanish thugs. Not much religion until a sudden Church event, priest and ritual, a Catholic being awarded a Church honour – and the audience then discovering he was an arch criminal in the business world (echoes of the Mafia).
Screen Priests, 384
__________________________________________________________________________
TOY BOY
Spanish television murder mystery and investigation (2019, d. Inaki Mercero and Javier Quintas) where Catholicism is in the background, not part of the lives of two autocratic families – except where one family attends a funeral. The priest leads the procession out of the church, speaks to members of the family and leaves, one noting that the church was wanting to avoid them.
Screen Priests, 384
______________________________________________________________________
THE TWO POPES
The Two Popes (2019, d. Fernando Meirelles) was a Netflix release, with some commercial cinema release, gaining acting nominations for the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards for its two stars.
New Zealand-born screenwriter, Anthony McCarten, has done his research on Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, drawing on many of their statements as well as using his imagination to create conversations between them. The screenplay is both serious and funny, in English, Spanish, touches of German, Latin, and a significant component of God-language.
And the look of the film is striking, the stylish photography, the Vatican settings, Buenos Aires, the outdoors ministry of Cardinal Bergoglio, then black and white flashbacks to his younger years, his vocation decisions, and then a dramatisation of the drastic years of the Generals, especially in the 1970s.
There are also some surprises with the musical score, not just the expected serious and religious themes, some classical music, but a number of more contemporary songs, creating atmosphere as well as some touches of irony.
Cardinal Bergoglio visits Vatican in 2012 to persuade the Pope that he should resign as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. While the conversations between Bergoglio and Benedict XVI are at the core of the film, there is a great deal more. Some of the issues that the conversations highlight include the stances of each of them concerning belief and doctrine, the traditional teachings of the church, contemporary moral issues. Part of the drama is that they do not see eye to eye on some of these issues, the difficulties of combining authority and tradition with pastoral demands. But, as indicated earlier, there is quite a deal of God-language, discussions about faith and prayer, the two men devout, a confession sequence, Benedict to Francis, which takes the film beyond ordinary dialogue.
Audience responses are different, from those who favour John Paul II’s and Pope Benedict’s perceptions of the church compared with those who tend, enthusiastically, to favour Pope Francis and his evangelisation outreach. The differences between the two popes are made quite clear early in the film but, as they converse, with strong initial tensions, as they get to know each other, listen to each other’s stories, prepare the way for Benedict’s resignation and its consequences, there is a great deal more in the meeting of minds and hearts.
Because the film is very sympathetic to Pope Francis (not neglecting the criticisms of him when he was Jesuit provincial in Argentina and was seen to side too much with the authorities), the portrait of him is more extensive than that of Pope Benedict. As indicated, we are taken back quite extensively to Cardinal Bergoglio’s life, black-and-white photography of him as a young man, searching for his vocation, a recurring image of him sitting alone in the mountains reflecting, the possibility for marriage, his choices and entry into the seminary (filmed in black and white). Audiences who might not be fully aware of the controversy about Bergoglio and the generals, his turn as provincial wanting to protect the lives of the Jesuits, asking them to close some of their ministries because they were considered too dangerous, some defiance and him on the part of social-minded, confreres, will find this section of the film quite arresting. But, there are sequences enabling Cardinal Bergoglio to admit mistakes publicly, to be sorry for the decisions that he had made, to reconcile with some of his conferences. These experiences enable him, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires to reach out to the poor.
The Bergoglio who emerges from these sequences is an educated man, a religious leader, a man who admits mistakes, who is transformed into a social-minded pastor, an extrovert who is comfortable in meeting all kinds of people, enjoying their company (especially in supporting his football team, San Lorenzo), familiar with aspects of popular culture. (An amusing episode occurs where Benedict tells Francis that his piano CD was made it Abbey Road leads to a talk about the Beatles!)
By contrast, there is no visual portrait of Benedict’s life. There are verbal references, and his saying that he was more introverted, bookish, intellectual, and had not any of the pastoral outreach of the Bergoglio. (Audiences may well enjoy a sequence where the two are in a side sacristy of the Sistine Chapel, tourists arriving, Benedict’s decision for the two to walk through the Chapel, the tourists becoming excited – and a number of selfies!).
And so, the film and its narrative are multi-layered. The narrative goes back to the death of John Paul II and the preparations for the subsequent conclave, sequences of Cardinals discussing with each other, the possibility of Cardinal Bergoglio being elected, Cardinal Martini of Milan advising colleagues not to vote for him, Cardinal Ratzinger seemingly eager enough to become Pope. There is a dramatic tension in the conclave – the details of some of the voting, the black smoke, the white smoke, the emergence of Benedict, and Cardinal Bergoglio going back home, but seemingly steady pontificate.
Towards the end of the film there will be the 2013 conclave, the discussions, the assembly, the voting, the acceptance – and Francis not wanting special shoes, not wanting the ermine cape (“the carnival is over”), emerging to the cheering crowds and simply saying, “Buena Sera” (good evening).
Audiences interested in the contrast between the approaches of Benedict and Francis will find these sequences illustrating the different points of view, the needs of the church in the 21st-century, the issue of clear guidance and authority compared with a more horizontal metaphor of the church rather than the hierarchical pyramid, pastoral needs and evangelisation.
Which means then that involved Catholics, with faith and loyalty, will find this two hour immersion into the life of the church of great interest, of encouragement. For nominal Catholics, the film offers an occasion, even an invitation, to more thought and assessment, re-assessment. It will be the same for lapsed Catholics. For ecumenical and interfaith audiences, the drama is both attractive and thought-provoking. And for non-religious audiences, they will appreciate good drama, good writing and performances, character studies – and an opportunity to give further thought to the credibility, life and mission of the Catholic Church.
But, audiences will have two, at least, aspects of conversation about the film.
Questions arise, as they have done during the two pontificates, about tradition and openness of the church. Vatican II was about opening the windows and renewal and updating. John Paul II was committed to doctrinal orthodoxy but also to extensive world travel, showing the human, and frequently genial, face of the church. Benedict, had to move out of his preference for reserve, and continue John Paul II’s two aspects of church life, authority as well as the human face. With Francis, and this is very strongly highlighted in the film, the tradition is important but the pastoral interpretation of tradition is the great challenge, the realities of evangelisation in the contemporary world, pastors and their having “the smell of the sheep”.
Most audiences will enjoy the way these emphases are illustrated, from his whistling Abba’s Dancing Queen (which actually is also used in the background as the fully robed Cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel for the conclave!), some Latin American musical background, Pope Francis trying to book a ticket to Lampedusa online and failing (the film actually opening and closing with this episode), buying pizza in a shop near the Vatican (and later persuading a Vatican authority to go out and get some takeaway pizza for himself and Benedict to enjoy), Francis and his TV football watching, his jokes. Benedict does not always get them, then realises that they are jokes – and, amusingly, when he himself makes a joke, not so funny, he tells Francis that this was a German joke and German jokes are not meant to be funny! So, the human face, the humour.
In these senses, The Two Popes might be seen as an exercise in evangelisation to the world in the Francis’ mode. At the core of the conversation is Benedict’s resignation. There is a dramatic buildup in so far as Cardinal Bergoglio travels to the Vatican, continually tries to persuade Benedict to accept his resignation. Because of the differences in perspective between the two, Benedict says that the resignation might be interpreted as a criticism of Benedict’s direction of the church. So, there is much discussion to illustrate the different perceptions of each of the men.
However, with the issues of mismanagement in the Vatican bank, with the pressures of news that he wants to resign. Interesting that Bergoglio thinks that this is impossible, unthinkable. But, audiences will find fascinating this dramatising of the two points of view, the continuing conversations, Benedict reasoning, Francis’s change of mind – with a wry observation put in Benedict’s mouth that the papal successor usually acts as a corrective to the previous Pope and he will be glad to be alive to see his corrective! There are several mentions that rather than compromise, well-considered change is preferable.
The bonds between the two men and increasing mutual understanding prepare them for the actual resignation, the amazement throughout the world, the next conclave (and a scene where Benedict watches the white smoke on television in the papal apartment), the emergence of Francis.
The film then takes the advantage of quoting Francis’s words of social concern, his first trip outside the Vatican to Lampedusa to meet refugees who had sailed across the Mediterranean from North Africa, images of small boats and overwhelming waves, the faces of those in need. To that extent, the ending is venture into preaching, social preaching.
Given the significance of the two Popes themselves, the papacy in the Catholic Church at the beginning of the 21st-century, the continued dialogue between tradition and pastoral outreach, the questions of what the Catholic Church should be and will be, The Two Popes is a valuable film.
Screen Priests, p. 639.
________________________________________________________________________
UNDERCOVER GRANDPA
A PG rated comedy adventure (2017, d. Erik Canuel) his grandson enlists his grandpa to find a girl who seems to have been abducted. Grandpa’s secret is his past military activity. He rounds up his colleagues for this mission. Included is a priest-friend, Wolf (Lawrence Dane). They all relive their past with relish.
Screen Priests, 424
________________________________________________________________________________
THE UNHOLY
The Unholy (2021, d. Evan Spoliotopoulis) is an adaptation of a novel by reputable British author, James Herbert, The Shrine, transferring its location from England to Massachusetts (with its memories of the witches of Salem and the burnings). The Unholy works at several levels for review and reflection.
First of all, there is the popular movie level, of religious horror film, the intrusion of the devil. There are some shocks and scares, a couple of jumps out of the seat. There are the elements of witchcraft in the prologue, set in 1845 Massachusets, burning, denunciations of a priest, then ghosts and hauntings. This is a world of superstition. There are references to Satanism and pacts with the devil. There are also superstitions and apparitions of Mary, healings, in the context of the contemporary American Catholic Church. The impact of the horror film does not depend on an audience understanding Marian apparitions, which most audiences would not be familiar with.
Secondly, the film and its plot, the religious focus, will be viewed with hostile response by an audience which is anti-religion, anti-church. The portrayal of the visionary, the apparitions, Marian devotion and piety will probably confirm scepticism, such piety and activities appearing somewhat ludicrous to the sceptic. There is also the role of the clergy, the authority of the Bishop, the role of the hierarchy including an exorcist. But, there can also be some scepticism about the diabolical and satanic interventions in the world. The behaviour can be dismissed as religious mania, a world of the irrational which can be criticised and/or mocked. But these are not the intentions of the filmmakers.
At a third level, The Unholy can be considered from an informed Catholic perspective. The author, James Herbert, had a British Catholic upbringing and draws on his understanding of the church. The screenwriter has done his homework, there are quite explicit references and vivid and visual images of the apparition at Lourdes, at Fatima, at Medjugorje. There is also reference to the work of Pope Benedict XIV in the 18th century Enlightenment era and his regulations for the requirements and acknowledgement of miracles: something incurable, instantaneous cure, lasting. So, the film has quite a Catholic atmosphere and a Catholic advisor is mentioned in the final credits (though Mass sequences are not too accurate).
So, this is a drama of the conflict between good and evil, using religious language, and some graphic imagery of Satan, deriving from the art of the Middle Ages. One of the characters remarks that when God builds a church, Satan builds a chapel next door (attributed to Martin Luther).
The film goes back to the burning of witches in the 19th century, the use of dolls as retainers of superstition, the finding of such a doll at the site where the audience knows a witch was burnt. However, the attention is given to a young 18-year-old deaf-mute girl living in the priest’s house with her uncle, the parish priest (William Sadler). She is devoted to Mary and surprises those who see her hasten to the tree, able to speak, say that Mary, The Lady, has appeared to her, giving her messages, encouraging people to faith. And, what happens, of course, is that crowds come, that Alice is able to heal, that she enthuses the crowd with her devotion.
In fact, the central character is a sceptical journalist who has fabricated stories in the past and lost his reputation. He is a witness to what is going on, gets an agreement that he alone will be the mediator between Alice and the media. In the 21st-century, the apparitions certainly get media and, especially, social media attention. The parish priest is supportive of his niece. The Bishop (Cary Elwes) is consulted and brings in an exorcist Monsignor (Diogo Morgado) whose task is to disprove the reality of the miracles. However, the Bishop, more than a touch smarmy, gets caught up in the atmosphere, building a shrine and encouraging people to come.
A religious and Catholic sensibility will soon realise that the whole focus is on Mary, with plenty of images and statues of Mary and other saints, but minimally of Jesus, minimal reference to God. It is all Mary-focused, that the faithful should have faith in Mary, with many scenes of dedication to her, including the Bishop. The screenplay is very critical of an obsessive piety and devotion to Mary which does not lead, as the dictum says, to Jesus through Mary.
So, the film is actually a film about faith, misguided faith in sincerely devoted people, emotional faith that is not God-centred. And, there is a dramatic conclusion, some fiery purging, but also the possibility of the truth and peace. The Unholy is probably not going to get this kind of attention from audiences or reviewers – but, as indicated, it has themes and treatment which are pervasively Catholic.
Screen Priests, p. 265
__________________________________________________________________________
VAMPIRES VS THE BRONX
Comedy-horror (2020, d. Oz Rodriguez) about the gentrification of the Bronx and a campaign by young activists protesting. A lot of vampire shenanigans. Some of the young men are Hispanic. So, there is church background and a priest, Fr Jackson, played by Cliff ‘Method Man’ Smith -who has some short-tempered scenes with them.
Screen Priests, 424
_______________________________________________________________________
THE VESSEL
The Vessel (2016, d. Julio Quintana) in the title is actually a boat which the central character, Leo, Lucas Quintana, builds out of the wreckage of a school which was destroyed by a tsunami 10 years earlier, the tsunami killing all the children in the school, deaths and the devastating effect on the adults in their survival, their Catholic tradition, the loss of faith, loss of practice of their faith.
The central character has survived in the community, but his mother has withdrawn into herself. He is a good friend to his younger brother but the two of them, drinking, sit on a wall at the water’s edge, fall in and are drowned. But, after three hours, Leo is alive – a miracle for the people but they are fickle, supporting him, then when he builds a boat out of the wreckage material from the school, they turn against him and burn the boat. He is encouraged by Fr. Douglas, the parish priest, who came just before the tsunami and has tried to serve the villagers who have abandoned church practice. He wants to use the vessel as a symbol but the villagers burn it.
Faith, despair, religious tradition, the role of the priest (yet another sincere performance as a priest by Martin Sheen), years in the parish, his life of prayer, the possibility and consequences of miracles. Father Douglas: ‘All my life I’ve believed in miracles. Now I think a miracle is just a tragedy narrowly avoided by chance.’
Screen Priests, p. 387
_________________________________________________________________
LA VILLE DON LE PRINCE EST UN ENFANT/ THE FIRE THAT BURNS
This film of 1997 (d. Christophe Malavoy) is based on a play from 1951 by Henry de Monthalant and keeps that setting. This is a Catholic Church story, the setting in a boarding school for boys. The atmosphere of Catholicism is that of pre-Vatican II. The clergy are on a pedestal although this is the kind of film that contributed to something of the toppling of pedestals. The school is rather isolated. There is a superior, often seen watching the boys and the staff, an interesting performance and presence by Michel Aumont.
The film gives quite some attention to the boys in the school, the range of ages, classes, sports, a variety of activities. It also shows the priests on the staff but concentrates on the one, Abbe de Pradts, played by the director of the film, Christophe Malavoy.
The other focus is on two of the boys, a difference of age of several years between them, but a strong friendship, intimations of homosexuality, the older boy strong minded, the younger boy, even more strong minded and self-assertive, with the friendship and with the dealings with de Pradts.
This is the period of a number of stories about priests – and the story was published at the time of the release of Robert Bresson’s film Diary of a Country Priest.
There is very little background to de Pradts. He is moving into middle age, has been a priest for some time, takes his work very seriously, but devotes a great deal of his attention to the boys, the Superior thinking that he spends too much time with the boys. Towards the end of the film, there is quite some serious discussion between the two priests, psychological in many ways, but rather cerebral in terms of the language, the ideas, relationship between adults and children, the role of the male adult educator and the children, the demands of celibacy, spiritual aspects of priesthood.
The film does not reach dramatic conclusions but leaves the reflections for the consideration of the audience.
The film was made in France at the time, the 1990s, when there was more focus in the church, and more focus in films, on schools and sexual abuse.
Screen Priests, p. 547
___________________________________________________________________
VOCES/ VOICES/DON’T LISTEN
This is a Spanish version of a Paranormal Activity thriller (2020, d. Angel Gomez Hernandez), an eerie setting, a decaying mansion which a family is restoring. However, the young boy of the family does not like the place, hears weird sounds, voices, and eventually is found dead floating in the swimming pool. An author is called in.
The expert discovers that the mansion used to be a court for the Inquisition. They explore the basement, finding the old implements, and a skeleton in a cage, a dead witch – whose rage has filled the mansion taking vengeance on visitors.
There is a post-credit sequence where a priest (Peter van Randen) contacts the expert to come and help him deal with a woman in torment, which is visualised.
Screen Priests, 530
_______________________________________________________________________________
WALKOUT
Social drama, (2006, d. Edward James Olmos), set in East LA 1968 and Chicano students organising walkouts to protest school conditions and lack of opportunity. When the students’ meeting place is taken over by undercover agents, they move to a church for meetings. A priest can be glimpsed taking around food. At the final key meeting a priest in collar can be seen in the front seats.
Screen Priests, 181
_________________________________________________________________
WASP NETWORK
Wasp Network (2020, d. Olivier Assayas) is based on actual events in the 1990s, Cuban exiles in Miami and sabotage plots against the Castro regime and alternate exiles who infiltrated the terrorist groups on behalf of the regime. The Catholicism of the exiles is highlighted in a wedding ceremony and attendance at Sunday Mass with the Hispanic priest greeting those attending. (No names of actors as the priests have small roles.)
Screen Priests, p. 388
____________________________________________________________________
THE WAY BACK
Ben Affleck plays a worker, grieving for the death of his son, marriage break-up, drinking, who is offered a job as basketball coach at his old Catholic School. Fr Devine (John Aylward) comes from the parish to persuade him to take the job. He spends a lot of time and anguish before he accepts. While coaching, very tough, incessant swearing which another priest, Fr Whelan (Jeremy Rudin), who is present at training sessions as well as all the matches, takes exception to, citing the standards of the school. He gives the coach pep talks. When Affleck has a relapse, Fr Devine comes to sack him, quoting zero tolerance of alcohol at the school. Affleck makes appeals but is refused. (He does begin to make his way back and attends a match which the players dedicate to him.)
Screen Priests, 351
___________________________________________________________________________
WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS
One of the advantages of the film (2020, d. Thor Freudenthal) is that it has a very well-written screenplay, intelligent and articulate, with a great deal of sadness, but also with some humour.
Young actor, Charlie Plummer, brings the central character, Adam, to vivid life. Adam is still at high school. His father has walked out. His mother, Beth (Molly Parker), is absolutely devoted to him, taking him to doctors and psychiatrists, eager to find the right medication and program, perhaps over-eager in her love and care. Many times, Adam finds this smothering. The screenplay alerts audiences to prescriptions, medical programs, side effects, the dangers of not following the regime.
The film uses visual devices to indicate Adam’s schizophrenia and its effect on him. In various episodes, the images are blurred, sometimes a black pervasive smoke, distortions of people around him. For the voices that he hears, they are embodied in three characters, Joaquin, a fellow off-hand teenager, Rebecca, a sympathetic young woman, and a Bodyguard, tough and fierce, with some associates. Adam also hears voices from open doors. And, as for the title, it appears towards the end in a frightening hallucination of so many words of graffiti on the toilet walls.
Adam is very frank about his schizophrenia. He is filmed, direct to camera, explaining himself and his experiences to a psychiatrist. At school he has an episode and burns the arm of a fellow student, and is expelled. Interestingly, for a Catholic audience, while he is not a Catholic, Adam is enrolled in a Catholic school, St Agatha’s, the principal, Sister Catherine (Beth Grant) rather strict but prepared to make allowances for him. There is quite an amount of Catholic imagery around the school, statue of the Sacred Heart, images in the Chapel.
The Catholic theme is emphasised in the introduction of the character of Fr. Patrick played by Andy Garcia. Adam wanders into the Chapel, goes into the confessional, unfamiliar with what happens, but finding a very sympathetic priest who is able to listen, use common sense, is not judgemental, offers a range of Scripture texts (which Adam is not enthusiastic about), explains the nature of the confessional and how acknowledging one’s limitations and faults can be liberating. (If only all the clergy had the genial characteristics of Fr. Patrick!). Adam has further visits, talking, seeing Father Patrick outside, a later hospital visit, his presence at the graduation, encouraging Adam and a final wink.
The performances make quite an impact. The screenplay is able to communicate some of the aspects of schizophrenia, the episodes, the effect on the schizophrenic, misinterpretation and bullying by those who do not understand. And, as has been said at the beginning, recommended.
Screen Priests, 351
___________________________________________________________________________
YOUR NAME ENGRAVED HEREIN
Taiwan has legislated in favour of same-sex marriage, giving a context for this film (2020, d. Patrick Liu). There have also been comparisons with Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name (even a comparison in tone with the two titles).
However, most of the action of the film takes place in 1987, with the repeal of martial law and of steady democracy. The action takes place in the school, a Catholic school, in fact, with a chaplain who is available to the students but who also coaches sport and in music (he originally comes from Montréal). The focus is on a student in the liberal arts, Jia- Han (Edward Chen) quiet, popular with other students. But, these students pick on a rather precocious fellow-student, nicknamed Birdy, labelling him as homosexual and exhibiting quite some homophobia in teasing and bullying. Jia- Han is attracted to Birdy.
This is Jia- Han’s story, his concealing his orientation, yet supporting Birdy, seen at home with his parents, a stern father, a loving mother who hopes her son will find a girlfriend. At the same time, the school is introducing female students – though with some rigorous disciplinary guidelines.
The framework of this earlier part of the film is Jia- Han, with some injuries to his face, going to see Fr. Oliver (Fabio Grangeon) to talk about his situation, to seek advice. The priest presumes that the trouble concerns relationship with girls and only gradually is Jia- Han able to reveal something of his own emotions. The priest offers traditional guidance. There is some discussion about gospel texts, especially the significance of love overcoming all else. The continued discussion recurs throughout the film.
Attention is given to the character of Fr. Oliver, the Canadian priest, his Catholicism, talking about Montréal and the 60s and the break with traditional Catholicism, his own schooling, beatings from the priests, infatuations, his leaving, vocation, working in the school, sports coaching, the music. He is sympathetic to Jia- Han, taking a strict line, presumptions about heterosexuality. The recurring conversations throughout the film, visit to the chapel. Prayer.
The screenplay includes aspects of Catholic teaching, homosexuality, the stances are Fr. Oliver, the presumptions of Jia- Han’s parents. There are Scripture texts, from the Song of Songs, from the Gospels, interpretation of the command of love, a range of discussions about love.
The last 15 minutes or so of the film are a kind of epilogue, taking place in the present, the older Jia- Han visiting Canada (with a long interlude at Niagara Falls which also appears during the final credits), going to the cemetery to Fr. Oliver’s grave, finding out what happened to him after he left Taiwan. And, he also encounters Birdy, as well as talking with Birdy’s ex-wife. There is tender reminiscence about the past, the two walking together – and the audience speculating what will happen to these two 50 year old men given the pain and anguish as well as love of the past.
The film offers a sympathetic portrait of Jia- Han, his struggles in the 1980s with himself, his sexual orientation, what it leads to in pain and disappointment – but, the film also shows that he survives. And survives into a much more tolerant world.
Screen Priest, 257.
________________________________________________________________
YOURS, MINE AND OURS
A 60s comedy of large families (1968, d. Melville Shavelson) - All turn out to be Catholics, though not much is made of this except the wedding ceremony – and the question about Catholic being the only ones with the large families. Interesting to note, the film was released three or four months before Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Letter on marriage (and the issue of birth control). The eldest boy gets his draft – this was made during the Vietnam war.
Screen Priests, 178e
____________________________________________________________________
