From the Editors

What happens to the people putting on a Passion Play? Someday Mel Gibson may tell us, but Denys Arcand's <I>Jesus of Montreal</I> proposes an engaging possibility. In hip present-day Montreal, a group of actors stages the Passion in an outdoor, somewhat avant-garde style, led by the quietly charismatic and increasingly uncanny young man (Lothaire Bluteau, <I>Black Robe</I>) playing Christ. His identification with the role, and the way it bleeds into real life, gives director Denys Arcand plenty of opportunities for social comment--some of it spot-on, some of it a little facile. But the fragile Bluteau is such a fascinating lead presence (the other actors are familiar from Arcand's <I>Barbarian Invasions</I> and <I>Decline of the American Empire</I>) that the movie's spell lasts long after it's over. Turns out the French-Canadian approach to the Passion can be just as intriguing as the original Aramaic. <I>--Robert Horton</I>
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Customer Response

GREAT FILM, but a lousy transfer
The KOCH-Lorber release includes French and English language tracks, and English and Spanish subtitles. It says it has a French 5.1 track, but this sounds faked (it doesn't sound like a remix, just a process pass -- the original stereo is less distracting).

Arcand is a great film maker who makes great movies. Decline of the American Empire, Jesus of Montreal, Barbarian Invasion, and Days Of Darkness are all beautifly crafted, acted, photographed, and well worth repeated viewings.

Unfortunately the transfer here apears to be struck from the original NTSC master. The image frequently shows "staircasing" (jaggies on lines), and is in a rather clautrophobic 4:3 -- it's not a deal-breaker, but it feels too tight. I saw it when it was first released and I suspect it was shot full frame for 1.85. Anyways, it needs a hi-def transfer and some contrast and color correction.

All theses things are irritants, but they can't keep a great film down. If this is your only chance to see Jesus of Montreal, then take it. The film itself doesn't date: the eighties iconography (haircuts, music, color schemes, etc.) is either subdued, or parodied. Watching it recently I found myself surprised at how much it looks a like a movie made today and set in the eighties than an "eighties movie". The biblical interpretations are interesting, not blasphemous (this isn't Catholic bashing); and the biblical allusions (the Christ story repeating itself in contemporry times) are subtle enough to be unobtrusive (although there is a rather blatant rip-off of Rebel Without A Cause). And it makes for an intersting contrast with Scrocese's "Last Temptation..." (J of M is better).

Bottom line -- it is completely entertaining.

Just a shame that this quiet masterpiece from the eighties is presented in such a second rate way.

Favorite Jesus Film
Every year during Holy Week my family and I watch a "Jesus Movie" as part of our tradition. The theology in this movie speaks closet to my own theology as any I have seen. Worth seeing.

Smart, moving, and thought-provoking.
Denys Arcand's "Jesus of Montreal" may be one of the best movies ever made about Christian beliefs and ethics; it is certainly one of the best movies ever to come out of Canada. This French-language film tells the story of Daniel Coulombe (Lothaire Bluteau), an intense and ascetic young actor hired by the Archdiocese of Montreal to freshen up the basilica's fusty annual Passion Play. The resulting drama--which throws in bits of Roman-Judean history and "historical Jesus" research, with Hamlet's "To Be Or Not To Be" soliloquy for good measure--becomes a smash hit, particularly Daniel himself in the role of Jesus. But the play also arouses the ire of the archdiocese for veering too far from traditional Catholic dogma.

Meanwhile, the lives of Daniel and his troupe of actors begin to mirror the story of the Gospel in clever ways; wait till you see the film's updated take on Jesus in the Temple with the money-lenders.

Some viewers find this movie too clunkily allegorical for their tastes; others--who vastly prefer Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ"--object to it for the same reasons the archdiocese objected to Daniel's play. Personally, I was totally charmed, pleased and moved by it. I found the allegory both witty and appropriate, and the performances--particularly Bluteau as Daniel/Jesus--absolutely first-rate. The film moves almost imperceptibly from witty satire at its beginning to tear-jerking tragedy at its end, with a fragile but real message of hope. Above all, it asks discomfiting questions about what it truly means to be a Christian, and not just someone who accepts Christian doctrine out of laziness or self-interest. "Jesus of Montreal" is a smart, moving and thought-provoking film. Whatever your spiritual orientation, it will get you thinking about what you believe, and why.

excellent
excellent movie for spiritually minded folk with wonderful ending that really touched my heart and made me think. subtitles were not a problem. highly reccomended. enjoy!

Beautiful, but perpetuates dissociated ideas about enlightenment
I loved certain parts of this movie, such as the characters' bonding and rising up from their lost lives and finding a purpose and cause with deeper meaning - one beyond money, shallow fame, and conventional success. I also found many of the parallels between the life of Jesus (as written in the Bible) and lives of the characters in the movie to be extremely clever. Sometimes, however, these were intellectually a bit too clever, and didn't deliver enough of an emotional punch. Other times, though, the cleverness overlapped with emotional content fantastically (such as when the main character symbolically overturned the moneychangers' table at the temple) and the movie just sang.

A few other criticisms:

1) The movie was slow to get started. It took about 45 minutes to come up to speed, though once it did it really took off, and the last half-hour just flew.

2) The portrayal of Jesus was of a dissociated, magically-human Jesus that tires me out. I didn't care to see the miracles of him walking on water and healing the blind. To me that's just silly, dated mythology. I want to see a new Jesus!

3) I didn't like how they sexualized the relationship between the actor who played Jesus and his pretty co-actor. I don't believe an enlightened Jesus would have been in a sexual relationship. Also, there was a scene where the Jesus character was nude in a bathtub and someone brings a little girl in and she kisses him on the lips. Um, at best unnecessary, at worst perverse.

4) But my main criticism: The actor who played Jesus, who slowly melded his real life with that of Jesus's life as told in the Bible, was presented as having become, by the end of the film, a sort of enlightened guru. I found this portrayal of enlightenment false - more as emotionally splitting off and becoming dissociated, less as becoming truly enlightened and aware. I see enlightenment as the result of working through one's traumas, grieving, and connecting fully with the best of one's inner spirit. I felt the actor who played Jesus did not become connected with his true self much at all, nor did he manifest true greatness - and instead just lost himself in a dissociated role and ultimately died for little emotional purpose.

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