Review of The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) by Davey M — 16 Aug 2011

One of the strangest movies I know, and one of my very favorites. I'm always pretty troubled and even a little put off by some parts of it (the anger in Jesus is probably the most troubling part of the film for me), but the the depiction of Christ experiencing fear and doubt and ultimately overcoming them (Dafoe's performance is super crazy and super powerful), the stirring Peter Gabriel score (the soundtrack on its own is just as great as the film), Scorsese's and Ballhaus's energetic and expressive movement of the camera (the "Palm Sunday" sequence is utterly transcendent), the philosophical layering of Kazantzakis's story and Schrader's script, and the sheer sense of conviction behind the film (I can't think of any other film that treats the character of Christ so seriously or so thoughtfully) turn it into one of the great religious meditations in film history, and certainly one of the best (if also certainly one of the most unconventional) biblical epics.

Pretty much the entire second half of the movie gives me a sustained spiritual high that's unlike practically anything I've experienced, and I love its willingness to ask questions about Jesus, to examine the nature and depth of His sacrifice, to try and make sense of the fundamental paradox of His existence (that He is both God and man, entirely mortal and entirely perfect), and to tell His story in a way that is both more down to earth and realistic (aesthetically and psychologically) and also more metaphorical, metaphysical, and visionary than other cinematic renderings of the story.

My own image of Christ is, of course, substantially different from the Jesus of "Last Temptation," but, seeing the film when I did, it also provided insights into the story of Christianity that rekindled my belief, gave me some answers to questions I'd been asking, and then went on to ask a whole lot more.

"The Last Temptation of Christ" is such a unique film in terms of what it accomplishes, what it sets out to accomplish, and how it goes about it, that it's hard for me to really compare it to any other movie--it's a bizarre piece of storytelling and a strange production (a gritty, visionary biblical epic on a relatively low budget), and it's deeply faithful even as it goes into some pretty radical and sometimes disconcerting territory for most believers (the "last temptation" of the title is only one of the potentially troubling aspects).

In short, this is a wild, crazy movie, a movie it's hard to believe was ever even made, a movie with a seemingly non-existent (or at least a tiny) target audience that has somehow developed a devoted and diverse cult following, a movie that aims to create a spiritual reverie even as it engages in a dialogue with you, a movie I don't know how to describe or evaluate by most conventional standards.

But man alive does this movie get to me.