THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW (1965)

As a lapsed Catholic boy, I am still driven now and then to religious movies, especially at Easter. I enjoy the high camp of DeMille's THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (I know it's a Passover film, but can I help it if the networks confused me as a child by always running it at Easter?) and the more serious, austere, and ambiguous films of directors like Ingmar Bergman and Robert Bresson, and I even have a soft spot for those impossibly reverent, usually lifeless spectacles like KING OF KINGS. This film by gay Catholic Marxist director Pier Paolo Pasolini is unique in the canon of Jesus movies. It is reverent to the extent that the narrative is straight out of the Gospel of Matthew, but it is filmed in the Italian "Neorealist" style, almost as though a documentary or reality show crew is following Jesus around. The actors are almost all amateurs and the sets are (I assume) found locations in the hills of Italy, which double fairly well for the Holy Land. The upshot is that this movie brings Jesus to life more than any other film I've seen. There is surely no need here for a detailed plot summary; the film covers most of the highlights of the Christ story including His birth, the visit by the Wise Men, Herod's Slaughter of the Innocents, Christ's temptation by Satan, His encounter with John the Baptist (and John's later encounter with Salome), and on to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Pasolini's non-pro actors don't have much dialogue, but they have faces ranging from lovely (Christ, played by Enrique Irazoqui, and the young Virgin Mary, played by Margherita Caruso) to frat-boyish (the soldiers who carry out Herod's slaughter) to grotesque (lepers and various onlookers), and much of the story is told through close-ups of the characters. The best example of this is the opening: Joseph, discovering that Mary is pregnant (and apparently not by him) walks away from her in anger and confusion, but is met by an angel (a rather scruffy young woman in plain white robes) who tells him what to do. Neither Mary nor Joseph has any dialogue, but their faces (and body language) express their feelings. There are a couple of nicely done montages of Christ preaching, and the intense Irazoqui varies between loving concern and angry passion. His Christ is the most interesting portrayal I've seen yet. The social messages of Jesus are made clear, but so are His fiercer concerns about the soul. The eclectic musical score ranges from Bach to the blues (folk singer Odetta singing "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"). A superbly made film, accessible to the religious and the agnostic alike. The Water Bearer DVD is OK--it is letterboxed, but the print is not in great shape and the subtitles are occasionally hard to see. This cries out for a restored Criterion edition. [DVD]