Mary (2005/I)

Synopsis: Several characters' personal dramas are shown, their point of intersection being a film about Jesus where the role of Mary Magdalen in early christianity is given more weight than it traditionally had been up to then. Marie, the actress who plays Mary in that film, is affected by her work in it, and becomes a religious woman. Anthony, the director, is quite enthusiastic about his work, and has fits of egocentrism. Ted, a TV interviewer, is conducting a series of programs about Jesus, and becomes interested in what happened with Marie; his work conflicts with his married life; his wife is pregnant and about to give birth.

Appraisal: A cursory viewing might lead one to believe that it is a collection of stories about characters without much relation among them, and that the theme of the film, which according to its title was meant to be Mary Magdalen, is actually -- perhaps due to an unplanned change, one could surmise -- the more general theme of faith, but addressed in a more or less nonsystematic way. When the film was almost over, however, I was amazed to discover that there is a wealth of meaning and consistency in it that is not outspoken. The film is actually about Mary Magdalen as a symbol for women's role in spirituality, and how it has been systematically erased from the official religion, and, even more, about how precisely their suffering of that suppression relates to that role through the doctrine of forgiveness and self-effacement in christianity. How is that manifested in the movie? I can cite two important instances: first, notice how Ted's wife continually withstands his neglect of her, and continually forgives him ("not seven, but seventy times seven", the Gospel tells us); second, in an emblematic scene, where Marie is called by phone into an interview with Anthony the director, a fact which arouses his wrath -- this clearly parallels the male monopoly of the Church, and the exclusion of the feminine voice. So, this film offers an analysis of the complex role of the sexes in Christendom, which ultimately determined the role of Christendom in the relationship between the sexes. But this film is also, on a perhaps deeper level, about the contradictory character of religions (and ultimately of any ideology). They are born out of the need for new ideas, yet they can only thrive by stifling all competing ideas, both older and newer ones. This is shown in the analysis of the Mary Magdalen issue, how the history of Christendom was made up to conform to a male-dominant worldview; it is also present in a background manner by the display of religious conflicts in the Middle East and in the United States. Whether the filmmaker has achieved a translation of his ideas into a compelling succession of images is something else again; I think he hasn't done such a terrible job in that department, yet I admit that the film is not as strong as its implicit conceptual complexity might suggest.

Rating: 54