Tag: Rooney Mara

Mary Magdalene

Posted on by victorfraga

Just in time for Easter, here’s the latest biblical epic about the life of Jesus Christ. In telling the story from the perspective of Mary Magdalene (Rooney Mara), this one adopts the time-honoured strategy of embracing a different character’s point of view, something done in, for example, the various adaptations of Ben-Hur (Fred Niblo/1925, William Wyler/1959, Timur Bekmanbetov/2016) and the underrated Barabbas (Richard Fleischer, 1961).

Mary Magdalene is impressive. For a start, it feels like a movie someone really wanted to make rather than one a Studio executive thought could make a lot of money out of a religious demographic. It opens with Mary and other fisherwomen deploying nets along the shore and details her family’s latest unsuccessful attempt to marry her off against her wishes to a promising suitor. Apart from working at fishing, she’s a woman to whom things are done rather than one who does things for herself: the fact that she doesn’t marry means that her family subject her to an exorcism ritual to rid her of the demon that is clearly causing the problem.

All of which changes when Mary decides to leave home and follow charismatic, itinerant preacher and potential revolutionary Jesus (Joaquin Phoenix) in the sense that this is a way she can assert herself and make her own journey through life – to the great consternation of some of his disciples such as Peter (Chewitel Ejiofor) who don’t think that they should allow women to come along, ostensibly because it would be bad for their reputation. Or maybe Peter’s take is just a straightforward case of misogyny. After all the Old Testament with which Peter as a first century Jew would have been familiar is a book written largely under patriarchy even if, for those who read carefully between the lines, it has much to say in favour of the emancipation of women.

For people to leave behind families and travel with him in this way, Jesus must have had some truly extraordinary about his character and personality and the casting of Phoenix (shortly to be seen as a Taxi Driver-inspired avenging angel in You Were Never Really Here, Lynne Ramsay, 2017) is a master stroke. In his interpretation, Jesus becomes a sharp-witted, enigmatic type who speaks in spiritual conundrums. You need to believe that this rag tag bunch of fishermen and others would leave their everyday lives behind to follow him on his travels – and believe it you do watching this film. In the case of Judas (Tahar Rahim) it has to do with Jesus’ proclamations of revolution and a new order – not so much a case of whether the Romans are going to be overthrown as when. However, Mary interprets Jesus’ words completely differently and makes a point of saying so. In doing so, she also appears to get closer to Jesus than any of the others. But the others aren’t too happy about her views.

It’s a much more consistent film than the equally personal The Last Temptation Of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988), which alongside an effective sequence of Jesus casting out demons has the disciples arguing in New York accents and a ludicrous desert temptation sequence involving the devil portrayed as an unconvincing special effects snake. As well as its exorcism, Mary Magdalene features the dead Lazarus being brought back to life and is shot not in Israel but Southern Italy, yet neither locations nor special effects get in the way of its vision and the whole thing hangs together well.

Although it apparently used the apocryphal Gospel Of Mary as a major source, Mary Magdalene treats the better known Biblical gospels with respect but is perfectly happy, in the interests of narrative coherence, to leave things out if they’re not really relevant to its central character’s experience, e.g. the trial of Jesus, where Mary isn’t present, is omitted for that reason… he’s dragged off and she’s knocked unconscious in (unnamed) Gethsemane, then he’s carrying the cross(bar) through the streets and being crucified. It makes sense as a character study of her rather than him and the narrative flows well as a piece of cinema.

The exorcism is nowhere near as upsetting or indeed lengthy as the one in contemporary Romanian convent drama Beyond The Hills (Cristian Mungiu, 2012), but then here it occurs fairly early on whereas the one in Beyond The Hills is the narrative destination. It may also be because Hollywood has half an eye on selling this movie to the Bible Belt heartlands which Mungiu almost certainly didn’t. Whether that audience will buy into the independent woman as disciple story presented here and a feminist film remains to be seen: the film is a long way from the right-wing “father knows best” mentality but then so are some of the more liberal or radical Christian traditions. The filmmakers claim in the press blurb to be making a film aimed less at a narrow Christian audience and more at a wider spiritual one. I found myself completely caught up in her story (or herstory) and never found it twee, clichéd or picture postcard-y. Not for one minute. It deserves to have both religious and non-religious people go and see it and make up their own mind.

Mary Magdalene was released in cinemas on March 16th, when this piece was originally written. It’s out on VoD on Monday, July 9th, and on DVD/BD on July 23rd.

A Ghost Story

Posted on by mjbstaging

A couple lives in a house. He dies and returns as a ghost (a person with a sheet over his head) she can’t see. She stays for a bit then moves out. Other people come and go. He stays, he waits.

Initially M (Rooney Mara) wants to move somewhere else, but C (Casey Affleck) rather likes the house and wants to stay. After his death, she identifies his body in the morgue then spends some time with his mortal remains. Later, his corpse gets up matter of factly, sheet and all, and leaves. To return to their house. Before moving out, she scribbles a note on a small piece of paper, folds it in to a tiny square and pushes it into a door frame. He tries repeatedly to extract this note to see what it says. We want to know, too.

Time moves on but C doesn’t. He attempts to scare a resident mum and her children by hurling kitchen plates at them in an uncharacteristic loss of self-control. He listens to a man at a party pontificate on the meaning of life in terms of what we leave behind. He waves at the (person under a floral patterned sheet) ghost in the house next door. Eventually the houses are demolished and the site is built upon. He goes back in time to watch the settlers who built the first house.

Some very long takes include one of the bereaved M violently stuffing herself with a pie then throwing up. The 4:3 frame with rounded edges throughout recalls projected photographic slides and home movies of yesteryear. Odder still are the noises off which M and the pre-ghost C get out of bed to investigate although they can find nothing. We’re never quite sure what we’re doing in this house or why we’re watching this couple in their very private, home space. We might be some strange, unearthly presence. Such as a ghost.

All of which is thoroughly compelling to experience or just to watch. As M drops out of the film, you’ll find yourself wondering what C’s ghost is still doing there, why hasn’t he just vanished at death or gone on to whatever place we go to when we die. If the film ponders such questions, it never attempts to impose easy answers. That lends it an incredible power.

C’s death is violent but we see only its peaceful aftermath. There is violence however in both their lives: M’s violent eating reflects C’s when we eventually see him eat in flashback. His violent outburst with the kitchen plates suggests something latent in his character but elsewhere he seems relaxed. The violence expresses a pent up frustration lurking beneath. What matters in life? What happens if it’s suddenly cut short? What exactly do we leave behind us?

A Ghost Story was out in cinemas in August 11th, when this piece was originally written. It’s out on all major VoD platforms in February 2018.

Click here for another film meditation on death.

The Secret Scripture

Posted on by victorfraga

Does a satisfying ending have to include peace and happiness? Can a story stun audiences by embracing inner tragedy? These are some of the questions raised by Jim Sheridan’s The Secret Scripture. The Irish director’s career is dotted with major achievements such as My Left Foot (1989), The Field (1990) and In the Name of the Father (1993) and the expectations for this new feature film once again set in Ireland were high.

The Irish Catholic church has become infamous in history books for bigotry and repression, and The Secret Scripture creates an interesting portrait of the controversial institution. It follows the path established by movies such as Frear’s Philomena (2013) and Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters (2002) – both expose abuse in the Catholic Church of Ireland – and adapts the original novel written by the Irish writer Sebastian Barry.

This is the story of Rose (portrayed by a stunning Rooney Mara and a superb Vanessa Redgrave) and is set in two different periods of the protagonist’s life. The first part depicts her lonely and solitary life in Belfast, where she lives with her sister. The troublesome priest Father Gaunt (Theo James) begins to develop an obsession with her. He is the key figure of the story, representing both the cruel manoeuvres of the clergy and the forbidden sexual desire. After a series of events, she is accused of murdering her own child while being locked in an asylum. The first part is thought-provoking and tense: the first 40 minutes develop a proper plot, but then as we move to the second half everything changes.

Move forward 25 years. We are still projected inside Rose’s troubled mind and feel her suffering, but the storytelling changes dramatically. The plot is desperately seeking a happy ending as well as an explanation for the events that the viewers have witnessed. All the dark and pleasantly unforeseen turns of the first timeline suddenly come undone. There is no room for ambiguity. After a series of unfortunate events, the universe has decided that Rose should be the protagonist of a series of fortunate coincidences.

This shift of tone doesn’t help the movie, instead making it implausible. Lots of storytellers always want to end on a positive and hopeful note, but sometimes it’s better to deliver a realistic and gripping outcome, instead of a far-fetched one. I not saying this film is not worth a shot, it just lacks audacity.

The Secret Scripture is out in the UK on Thursday, May 19th. You can watch the international film trailer right here: