Mary
Y
SepT 29, 2005
Screened at the Venice Film Festival.
VENICE, Italy -- The best line in Abel Ferrara's murky and forgettable religious film "Mary" comes when a television journalist asks a movie star and director why he has made a film about Jesus Christ. "Gibson made a billion dollars!" comes the reply.
Unconvincing in all its premises, "Mary," screened in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, is shot mostly in the dark with little attempt to make things clear. Mel Gibson has nothing to worry about.
Forrest Whitaker plays the journalist, the first one ever to persuade an American network to devote a week's worth of primetime to talking heads examining the life of Christ. It's especially remarkable because he appears to be still compiling the shows just before they go on the air.
He appears not to be aware that superstar Tony Childress (Matthew Modine) is opening his epic "This Is My Blood" that very week, and it's only when he meets the filmmaker at a screening that he invites him on his show.
Meanwhile, the film's leading lady, Marie Palesi (Juliette Binoche), has been missing for a year -- presumed to be in Jerusalem -- having had some kind of religious trauma because of playing Mary Magdalene and being brutalized by Childress.
Ted's wife Elizabeth (Heather Graham) is close to a dangerous childbirth, but she is conveniently Marie's best friend, so that when Ted decides to have Marie call in to his show to confront the director, she's easy to reach.
There is cross-cutting between indistinct scenes of Marie in the Holy Land, the film within the film, and Whitaker having an emotional breakdown, but it's hard to tell what it all means, if anything.
Whitaker and Graham do professional work as a couple threatened by the loss of their newborn. But Binoche can do nothing with her role, as Ferrara does little to flesh out the character, so her fate is of no interest. And poor Modine is stuck playing a cocky film director who calls reporters "baby." Right.
VENICE, Italy -- The best line in Abel Ferrara's murky and forgettable religious film "Mary" comes when a television journalist asks a movie star and director why he has made a film about Jesus Christ. "Gibson made a billion dollars!" comes the reply.
Unconvincing in all its premises, "Mary," screened in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, is shot mostly in the dark with little attempt to make things clear. Mel Gibson has nothing to worry about.
Forrest Whitaker plays the journalist, the first one ever to persuade an American network to devote a week's worth of primetime to talking heads examining the life of Christ. It's especially remarkable because he appears to be still compiling the shows just before they go on the air.
He appears not to be aware that superstar Tony Childress (Matthew Modine) is opening his epic "This Is My Blood" that very week, and it's only when he meets the filmmaker at a screening that he invites him on his show.
Meanwhile, the film's leading lady, Marie Palesi (Juliette Binoche), has been missing for a year -- presumed to be in Jerusalem -- having had some kind of religious trauma because of playing Mary Magdalene and being brutalized by Childress.
Ted's wife Elizabeth (Heather Graham) is close to a dangerous childbirth, but she is conveniently Marie's best friend, so that when Ted decides to have Marie call in to his show to confront the director, she's easy to reach.
There is cross-cutting between indistinct scenes of Marie in the Holy Land, the film within the film, and Whitaker having an emotional breakdown, but it's hard to tell what it all means, if anything.
Whitaker and Graham do professional work as a couple threatened by the loss of their newborn. But Binoche can do nothing with her role, as Ferrara does little to flesh out the character, so her fate is of no interest. And poor Modine is stuck playing a cocky film director who calls reporters "baby." Right.
