Mary Magdalene

Mary, ‘Cross The Fair Sea

Mary Magdalene
UK/Australia/USA 2018
Directed by Garth Davis
Universal Blu Ray Zone B

I was always lead to believe that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and I’ve seen that alluded to a fair few times in films over the years. Not so, apparently. According to the end of this film it was some pope who spread such stories many centuries ago. Now, I can’t say if this is a great adaptation of certain sections of The Bible or not, to be honest. The last time I read it... or, you know, a version of it... I was very young (maybe four or five?) and, frankly, I’m not a religious person. That’s not to say I don’t believe in God or some kind of Godly presence... if I can give consideration to the possibility of aliens and ghosts I can certainly believe in the possibility of that too... but I certainly don’t think any organised religion is going to have some kind of true, unvarnished story of what did or didn’t happen all those years ago. So, if you want to know what hill I’m sitting reviewing this from... it’s from the one where I’m not necessarily ungodly, just not prepared to decipher my way through a lot of man made, rabble controlling nonsense disguised as any of the religions of the world.

The reasons I wanted to see Mary Magdalene, as I missed it on the one week it was available at my local cinema last year, are two fold. Firstly, I quite like Rooney Mara and think she’s a great actress who possesses a certain quality that makes her kinda unique. Not necessarily better than all the others, just unique and... I haven’t been let down by her yet. I enjoy her work. Secondly, I knew the musical score was by Hildur Guðnadóttir and Jóhann Jóhannsson, which means this must have been one of the last scores that Jóhannsson worked on before he was found dead in a hotel room in Germany and I wanted to hear what he had done with it. So those are my reasons and the viewpoint from which I am approaching this film.

Now, it has to be said that this movie got my back up right away because, even though I’m not a religious person, the caption at the start informs us that it’s set in the year 33CE. Well, I’m sorry but I don’t agree with CE as something useful as anything other than a stupidly politically correct and possibly cowardly stance so as not to offend people of religious sensibilities believing in something other than what some people would mistakenly have you believe are, ‘the right religious sensibilities’. I know the term CE is, in fact, many centuries old but, frankly, I’ve have had BC and AD in my life for a long time and they outdate the alternate terms by around 1600 years. So I’m not having any of it. I may not be religious but it’s BC and AD or nothing, as far as I’m concerned. Have some respect for the past is what I say (not to mention the future).

Okay so, in spite of that, this is a quite a nice if, mostly, joyless take on the story of the last days of Jesus Christ. Christ is played by Joaquin Phoenix but everything in this film is seen through the eyes of Mary, played so interestingly by Mara, so we don’t even get to Jesus until a good twenty minutes or so into the film. Which is a bit of a double edged sword in terms of getting across the oft told story from the source material but, in all honesty, it makes a nice change.

Now, the director has gone for a lot of muted colours and, aside from the built in gravitas which seems to mostly be an inherent trait of the way this material is always handled, we also have a fairly sedate and less than colourful series of shots which add to the effect, despite some big smiles from Phoenix, that this is not a fun film in some respects. Although, if you believe in what the bible says then I can understand that a certain section of the audience will get more of a happier experience out of the content of the movie... just don’t look for it in the mise en scene.

That being said, and while I am on the subject of mise en scene... there is some nice photography and shot design in this movie. Although the cliché of the ‘very slightly moving hand held camera for shots that would normally be static’ methodology is applied during a lot of the film, there’s some nice shot design on hand too. I was especially impressed with a shot towards the end with Rooney Mara’s veiled, white head in close up as she’s telling the other disciples that Christ has risen. One particular shot where her head in the veil is splitting the screen vertically is great because the blurred background behind her head is full of dark texture on the left and light texture on the right... so her head becomes the focal point that the rest of the shot leads the eye too. That was a nice piece of work there and I wish they’d gone back to the that shot set up later on in the conversation because it was more effective than some of the other stuff they were doing in that scene.

Mara and Phoenix are both good in this, as is the always Chiwetel Ejiofor who pays Peter and some guy called Tahar Rahim, who plays Judas with wide eyed enthusiasm which helps the character come across as a somewhat naive person, it has to be said. So no problems on the acting front although, truth be told, I found the early parts of the movie... Before Christ (BC), so to speak... a little more gripping than the rest of the story.

In fact, the rest of the story does, in fact, kinda play out like a ‘selected highlights’ or ‘greatest hits’ compilation of famous set pieces of Jesus’ final days and, to a certain extent, you can’t blame the writers and directors from taking that approach. Especially since it’s pretty much the same approach that most films over the last 100 years have taken. However, the director and writers have, perhaps a little too conveniently, used the guise of having the narrative switched to Mary as a focal point, so they can skip a whole load of stuff which either a) she wasn’t allegedly to have been witness to or b) would have taken a lot more time and money to produce, I suspect. I don’t mind that so much myself and was somewhat relieved, since the film does drag a little at two hours, to not have to sit through things like the trial before Pilate and some other noteworthy bits of the various accounts of the events during the already longish running time.

Though, I have to say that this means it was only watchable to me, in terms of the coherence of the story content, because I already knew the basic tale of Jesus in the first place. Something I’m sure a certain percentage of the audience will have to fall back on but, I have to say, without this prior knowledge of the ‘between the lines’ of the events depicted on screen, I would have had a pretty hard time trying to piece together what was going on if I was new to this particular set of religious ideas. So, I can’t help but feel that the built in nature of audience expectation on the part of the film-makers here is a little arrogant and a smidge irresponsible/optimistic. It might, of course, promote further research for some of the audience or... you know... may not. Which is in itself a bit of a challenge unless you’re willing to take things that have been passed down through the years as ‘gospel’... so to speak.

At the end of the day, Mary Magdalene is a little dull in places but the performances of the leads are electric and if you have a prior knowledge of the source material on which this tale is being based and that stuff doesn’t offend you, then you will probably have an okay time with this one. I quite enjoyed it and, although it did drag a little in places, as I said, it never really outstayed it’s welcome and I was glad I chose this film to watch as my Easter Sunday viewing this year. I always like to have some kind of Easter connected film to watch over this period and so that was today’s choice.

Oh... and in case you were wondering, the music didn’t let me down. A nice score which I’m happy to see is on CD and which I will probably listen to a fair few times over the years. Not the best material any of the leads or principal movers on this movie could have chosen but glad to have followed them on their journey. Check this one out if you’re so inclined as it’s certainly not the worst film I’ve seen on the subject.