[/caption]The most dangerous place on earth is the human soul. hic sunt dracones "here there be dragons".
There is a new independent film out written and directed by Roland Joffé, a British filmmaker known for directing films having strong moral and religious themes: The Mission, Captivity and The Killing Fields are all his. The Huffington Post called it "The Opus Dei Film That Isn't Really About Opus Dei".
The show closes in St. Louis on Thurday, May 19th. You can find locations and times at Wherenberg Theaters here.
I hate to read too much (or much of anything) about a film or a play before I see it – the point of dramatic art is to let it interact with one's own intellect and experience to form a unique impression.What I am told is that this film gives a more than sympathetic treatment to the role of religion in a world going mad. St. Jose Maria Escriva makes an appearance and Opus Dei is treated in a factual way. I'm told it is good cinema, not great, but I'm going to go see it anyway & report back.
My good friend Kevin O'Brien and I have talked quite a bit recently about why so much modern Christian art (and especially Catholic art) is bad art. He's written about it on his blog. But we'd only rediscovered the point Flannery O'Connor described in a 1957 article The Church and the Fiction Writer:
If we intend to encourage Catholic fiction writers, we must convince those coming along that the Church does not restrict their freedom to be artists but insures it (the restrictions of art are another matter), and to convince them of this requires, perhaps more than anything else, a body of Catholic readers who are equipped to recognize something in fiction besides passages they consider obscene. It is popular to suppose that anyone who can read the telephone book can read a short story or a novel, and it is more than usual to find the attitude among Catholics that since we possess the truth in the Church, we can use this truth directly as an instrument of judgment on any discipline at any time without regard for the nature of that discipline itself. Catholic readers are constantly being offended and scandalized by novels that they don't have the fundamental equipment to read in the first place, and often these are works that are permeated with a Christian spirit.
In other words, unsentimental Christian art is not produced because it won't sell so the people who might produce it do something else for a living. This (as O'Connor points out) is a matter of education. The producer of Dragons seems to understand this, and has provided a ton of interpretative resources here. Media literacy is something we should pay more attention to.
written and directed by Roland Joffé, a British filmmaker well known for directing The Mission, Captivity and The Killing Fields.
There Be Dragons isn't about Opus Dei, neither is it really about Josemaria Escriva. Oh sure, we see St. Josemaria's early life and strong hints as to his sanctity. We see the founding of Opus Dei and a bishop intrigued by the idea that sanctity is for everyone in every walk of life, in their everyday lives. In a way though, St. Josemaria isn't a character in the film, he's a type. He represents the whole Church, which is (of course) fitting.
ReplyDeleteWhat it seems to me the film is about is the role of grace and sanctity and religion in a world gone completely mad. Two boys raised in the same town but with different attitudes about life and their fellow men are tossed into the Spanish Civil War (about which I know essentially nothing). They take very different paths. Who among us really knows which path he would take? We might know which path we'd hope to take, but I think it is hubris to say "I'd never do anything like that." But at the end of it all, no matter what we've done, were there is sorrow there can be understanding and forgiveness and acceptance but no pretense that it wasn't really that bad. It was. Well, we've got two wars going on right now and aging veterans of other wars...
Clocking in right at two hours, as a film, it was good but not great. St. Josemaria was a little too preachy at his mother's table, and there are a couple of over-obvious moments otherwise. Manolo was more of a character: we see him as a young man swept up in the war, and as an old man dying and struggling to come to terms with his past. The fighting scenes were well done, the moral problems of war demonstrated. There was only one real groaner in the script -- Fr. Josemaria was told he had a mountain to climb, and two seconds later his friends whisk him away over the Pyrenees. On foot. Uggggh!
The best thing about the film from my point of view is that it accepts Catholicism on its own terms -- although this or that character may belittle religion or express unbelief or even hatred for the Church, the filmmaker accepts and even seems a little in awe of a religion that forgives even the wrongs of war. Completely absent is any condescension or cynicism.
The film's last couple of showings in St. Louis will be tomorrow: if you can manage it, it is worthwhile to see the film. After that, I'm sure it'll be on DVD.