Christian fundamentalists shooting it out with government agents. Catholic monks facing their last days in the threat of terrorism. A dope smoking alien debunks religious belief. Nature and divinity wrestle in the soul of a Texan family.
Cinema in 2011proved to be a year of religious exploration and damnation unlike any other in recent memory. Riding the wave of debate centred on the stance of religion in an increasingly secular western world, it was not a surprise to find that many filmmakers opted to ridicule, satirize and even flat out attack religious belief in several films.
Yet bigotry through film was met with movies that dealt with the subject of religion and God in level headed and sincere terms. One film which did so from an atheist perspective was Higher Ground. Based on the biography of Carolyn S. Briggs, this Vera Farmiga directed and acted drama chronicled a journey from Christian belief to disbelief without resorting to snipe attacks, treating its subject with factual respect while also rationally criticising the flaws found in Christianity.
Higher Ground premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, the place that independent filmmakers attend to find distributors for their films. Religion was the prevailing (but not official) subject and indie filmmakers took to the subject with fire and pitchfork.
Take The Ledge for example. Directed by vocal non-believer Matthew Chapman, the film was akin to an atheist wish fantasy as Charlie Huffman’s cool atheist beds the wife (Liv Tyler) of a devout Christian (Patrick Wilson), only to be given a life or death dilemma by the dastardly Christian villain: jump off a ledge and prove his love for the Christian’s wife, or don’t and she will be killed.
Critic reviews were scathing, not in the least for the absurd premise.
Other films such as Salvation Boulevard, a crime comedy about a mega-church pastor (Pierce Brosnan) who kills a renowned atheist (Ed Harris), and the lone witness (Greg Kinnear) who is forced to conceal the truth by his congregation, was another “highlight” in the Sundance calendar.
Yet it would be another film that would hijack the press and the anti-theist crown at Sundance, with Kevin Smith’s Red State taking centre stage and creating controversy.
Drawing inspiration from “Christian” fundamentalists the Phelps family (known the most hated family in America), Smith stepped outside of his comedy/drama comfort zone to create a thriller about a group of religion wackos who abduct and kill “sinners” on their compound. Later they partake in a shootout with government agents ordered to take them out.
Outside of the disturbing levels of media whoredom which Smith succumbed to promote his movie, Smith’s film buckled under the pressure of his ill-educated ramblings on religion in America and the nature of belief as a whole, taking the approach that belief of any creed always concludes in violent fundamentalism.
Such theory is typical of Smith’s target audience: the fanboy. No longer content in Star Wars zines and toy collectables, the geek squad now wear their atheism loud and proud like a Star Trek confederacy badge, using the internet (especially YouTube, Reddit and Twitter) as a platform for their ill-informed atheist preaching which usually reverts to cyber bullying towards believers (especially Christians).
This brings us to Paul, the comedy/road movie tribute to all things sci-fi written by those other fanboy gods Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. They star as two loveable Brits who visit all of the UFO hot spots in America, only to find themselves aiding an extra-terrestrial fugitive named Paul (a CGI creation voiced by Seth Rogen) who is on the run from the government.
Along the way they abduct an evangelical Christian (Kristen Wiig) and that’s where things get messy with Paul using his intergalactic powers to disprove the existence of God, while bible bashers give chase with shotgun in hand.
While such stereotype is welcome to their target audience, the extremity of Pegg and Frost’s bigotry is absurd to say the least. Leaning on the notion to all Christian’s are anti-science duds and that God is a manmade construct, Frost and Pegg lose their footing since science and Christianity has and is compatible.
For further example look to the works of Catholic priests and astronomers Monsignor Georges Lemaitre and Father George Coyne, Catholic biologist Kenneth R. Miller and evangelical biologist Frances Collins, men of faith and science. Yet according to the rule of law which Paul rests upon, they are rarities within a religious faith that rejects evolution and carries shotgun over bible. How absurd.
Now I’m not ignorant to the un-Christian behaviour of some Christians, or those from other religions. Yet the tendency for filmmakers whether from Hollywood or abroad, mainstream or independent, to paint all religious people with a black brush is simply an act of prejudice.
But there are exceptions to the rule and none come as deeply satisfying – like a drink of cool water in the desert – than the French film Of Gods and Men.
Based on true events, Of Gods and Men tells the story of a group of Catholic monks who are situated in Algeria. When Islamic terrorists tear through their compound with threats of death if they don’t leave within a week, the monks are faced with a decision: stay and lay there fate in the hands of God, or leave and abandon the people who have come to rely on them.
Of Gods and Men was directed by Xavier Beauvois. He is not a religious man. Yet unlike his equally ill-religious peers, he has not succumbed to stereotypical means to portray his characters.
Instead, Beauvois has presented a unique look into Catholic spiritual life that is a rarity in cinema. These men pray. They sing hymns. They tend to their garden, speak to their Muslim neighbours, and wrestle with the decision placed in their hands.
Of Gods and Men also looked at the parallel impact that a devout religious life can lead to. On one hand you have a quiet devotion to the land, the flock and the soul. On another the violence which can spring from fundamentalism become berserk. Like all things in life, good and bad can flow from religion servitude. Yet rather than go down the easy road and focus on the evil that men do, Beauvois focuses on the good and a better movie is found in Of Gods and Men than a hundred Red State’s.
Yet the most perplexing, polarising and awe inspiring religious movie of 2011 was found in one film: The Tree of Life.
Written and directed by the elusive Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life focuses on a family in Texas who grapple with life, death, and God. Yet the canvas upon which Malick paints is much wider than a family drama. This is a film that delves into the life philosophies that we all follow: that of nature or grace.
Both are represented by the parents of this family. Nature is played by the father (Brad Pitt) a strict disciplinarian who teaches his sons that “fierce will is needed to survive in this world.” Grace is played by the mother (Jessica Chastain), an angelic presence of sensitivity and forgiveness.
Surrounding all this is Malick’s exploration into the creation and formation of the universe as told through the “theistic evolution” perspective, with God’s touch shown through awe-inspiring imagery of galaxies born and life on Earth evolving from bacteria, to dinosaurs, and so on.
Malick’s cinematic portrayal of God in science and science in God is intelligently and gracefully put forward, as is his character’s questions over just who or what God is and what is his role in our lives.
It is a uniquely Catholic perspective that is unflinching in its clarity. The Tree of Life is that rarest of film: entirely religious without shame. An artist’s theistic expression told without guilt.
While other American filmmakers have been tripping over themselves to lambast religion practice and teachings, Malick has spit in the face of their anti-theist conventions to make a film that does not rely on controversy or bigotry to stand out.
Interestingly, Malick opens The Tree of Life with a quote from The Book of Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Perhaps it’s time Smith, Pegg and the like ask themselves that question.
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