Saw The Gospel According to St Matthew. It was a fairly straightforward adaptation of the gospel. We trip from highlight to highlight, hearing the sermon on the mount and then straight off to the loaves and fishes. It is not breathless however. Rather, it adopts the traditional solemn tone. The actors and actresses act as little as possible, remaining statuesque and blank. They declaim the words from scripture which are indeed powerful and stirring enough that they can pretty much get away with this. It leaves the film a bit flat however for someone like me who, in my weakness, hungers mostly for spectacle. It is also quite thorough at times, including the moment when Jesus cursed the fig tree, an often-forgotten moment.
I felt I detected a slight note of absurdism in the film (though absurdism more in the vein of Bergman, than, say, Svankmajer.) Certainly the angel who appears to Joseph and the subsequent miracles of Jesus are clearly influenced by the unexplained 'here it is' feel of the absurdists.
I found the music very interesting. Soulful songs like this and this are cheek-by-jowl with classy numbers like this. It seems like the contrast should be grating, but the songs are used well and never even feel anachronistic.
Also it's kind of shocking to think that this completely respectful film came from the same director who created this monster.
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