Thursday, May 19, 2005
‘The Body’ directed by Jonas McCord (2001)
My eyes lit up when I read the review of this movie in my other essential weekly read apart from ‘Socialist Worker’, i.e. ‘What’s On TV’ magazine (I buy it for the East Enders scoops, obviously). It said ‘The Body’ was an archaeological thriller about a “bizarre find, which has potentially shattering implications for the future of Christianity and the Israel-Palestinian peace process…”
Yes, I thought, that does sound just a wee bit SIGNIFICANT.
So I taped the film.
And now I’ve watched it.
The archaeological find, in Jerusalem, is that of the remains of a crucified man, who could be Christ. And if it’s Christ then he wasn’t bodily resurrected. And that, apparently, would mean the end of the Catholic Church. (I say apparently as I don’t altogether understand Christian theology, because I was brought up among a small pagan community on a remote Scottish island, where our way of life involved group sex in the graveyard, nude fertility dances among the stone circles and the annual sacrifice of a policeman burnt to death inside a giant wicker figure. Since those days I’ve found all other world religions a bit dull, frankly.)
The plot of ‘The Body’ basically involves the relationship between an Israeli archaeologist (played by Olivia Williams), who is committed to establishing the truth, and a Catholic priest (Antonio Banderas) who is sent out by the Vatican to make sure that the remains are identified as NOT those of Christ, irrespective of the facts. Naughty, wicked Vatican!
In the background are a top Israeli official, Moshe Cohen (John Shrapnel), and a gang of ruthless Palestinians, who all want to use the remains to blackmail the Vatican into supporting them.
The film is crap.
It doesn’t work on any level. It’s not remotely convincing as a movie about men agonizing over their religious faith. The populist thriller aspects involving bombing, a kidnap and shoot-outs are banal and feebly executed. Its representation of an archaeological dig would make any professional archaeologist weep. And the relationship between the sexy archaeologist and the handsome twinkly-eyed young priest never really catches fire.
The suggestion that you could blackmail the Vatican with the bones of Christ and get the Pope on your side is surreal. Leaving aside the fact that the modern Papacy has always adopted a safe, equivocal position regarding Israel and Palestine, even if the Pope was rooting for your side, so what? It’s the USA that has the power and the influence and hands out the subsidies and the weaponry. Vatican policy towards Israel is an irrelevance.
But the movie, shot on location in and around Jerusalem with the enthusiastic co-operation of the Israeli authorities, interests me in two ways.
Firstly, in its treatment of Palestinians. There is only one ‘good’ Palestinian character. He is the simple shopkeeper, in whose back garden the remains are uncovered. He co-operates with the authorities. But sadly he is at the mercy of the PFJ (“the Popular Front for Jerusalem”), a gang of Palestinian fanatics who threaten him, let off a small explosive in his shop to terrorise him into submission, and in the end shoot him in the stomach. The Palestinians let off a car bomb, causing carnage and blowing up an orthodox Jew. They open fire with machine guns in the street. They abduct the archaeologist’s children. And when the evil Palestinian terrorist leader finally gets his hands on the bones of Christ, and is cornered by Israeli troops, what does he do? He blows himself and our saviour’s remains into smithereens!
Yup, that’s Palestinians for you. They’re so demented they’d even blow up Jesus.
In contrast, the Israelis are presented quite differently. The orthodox Jews seem crazy, but turn out to have a leader who is wise and reasonable. Moshe Cohen is a likeable hard-headed wise-guy negotiator. The army is neutral. And, hey, with shaven-headed vicious murderous Palestinian thugs lurking, who can blame them for holding all that weaponry?
The history of the modern Middle East is acknowledged just once. There’s a scene where the priest comes to the archaeologist’s home and looks at a framed photo of a man in uniform. It’s her husband. “He died in Lebanon,” she intones solemnly. (“So, he was a war criminal” Antonio Banderas doesn’t reply.)
Worst of all is the presentation of SOCIETY. Somehow this is a land where there are no roadblocks or segregation, and where Palestinians live alongside Israelis in a nice sunny place where everybody just goes about their business. Such a pity those crazy Arab terrorists have to spoil it for everyone.
Eric Lurio, reviewing the movie for ‘The Greenwich Village Gazette’, thought the movie was crap, too, but that if you could bear to watch it, “it might make the Middle East situation easier to understand”. Jesus!
And talking of The Man I should mention that at the end of the movie there’s a twist. It turns out they weren’t the bones of our saviour after all. Phew! The Pope can sleep soundly tonight.
What secondly interests me about this movie is the question of artistic responsibility. What would we think of Alfred Hitchcock if he’d gone off to the Third Reich and made a thriller in which the bad guys were Jews, the Gestapo were represented as a neutral law and order organisation and Hitler’s Germany was presented as a pleasant everyday sort of place? Or if Michael Caine had starred in a thriller made in apartheid South Africa, where the bad guys were vicious, evil members of the African National Congress and the good guys were brave white cops?
Questions like this obviously don’t trouble some members of the acting profession or some professional musicians. The fact that they don’t is perhaps in part a tribute to the effectiveness with which the Israeli state has muffled awareness of its origins and history, its victims, and its fundamental sectarianism.
Among the British loveys in this film (which was apparently shot on location in Israel in 2000) are Olivia Williams, John Shrapnel, Derek Jacobi, Jason Flemyng and Ian McNeice. You may not know all the names but you’d certainly recognise the faces. They pop up in movies and TV dramas all the time.
The dedicated soundtrack music was supplied by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Snell.
Ethnic cleansing? Torture? Sectarianism? Racism?
Nuffink to do with us, guv. We’re just simple entertainers.
If you scrutinise the credits at the end you’ll see that the movie was made with American finance and the collaboration of the “Israel Standards Institute”. What’s more “Product Placement” was organised by an outfit which trades under the brand name “Propaganda”.
Quite.
Yes, I thought, that does sound just a wee bit SIGNIFICANT.
So I taped the film.
And now I’ve watched it.
The archaeological find, in Jerusalem, is that of the remains of a crucified man, who could be Christ. And if it’s Christ then he wasn’t bodily resurrected. And that, apparently, would mean the end of the Catholic Church. (I say apparently as I don’t altogether understand Christian theology, because I was brought up among a small pagan community on a remote Scottish island, where our way of life involved group sex in the graveyard, nude fertility dances among the stone circles and the annual sacrifice of a policeman burnt to death inside a giant wicker figure. Since those days I’ve found all other world religions a bit dull, frankly.)
The plot of ‘The Body’ basically involves the relationship between an Israeli archaeologist (played by Olivia Williams), who is committed to establishing the truth, and a Catholic priest (Antonio Banderas) who is sent out by the Vatican to make sure that the remains are identified as NOT those of Christ, irrespective of the facts. Naughty, wicked Vatican!
In the background are a top Israeli official, Moshe Cohen (John Shrapnel), and a gang of ruthless Palestinians, who all want to use the remains to blackmail the Vatican into supporting them.
The film is crap.
It doesn’t work on any level. It’s not remotely convincing as a movie about men agonizing over their religious faith. The populist thriller aspects involving bombing, a kidnap and shoot-outs are banal and feebly executed. Its representation of an archaeological dig would make any professional archaeologist weep. And the relationship between the sexy archaeologist and the handsome twinkly-eyed young priest never really catches fire.
The suggestion that you could blackmail the Vatican with the bones of Christ and get the Pope on your side is surreal. Leaving aside the fact that the modern Papacy has always adopted a safe, equivocal position regarding Israel and Palestine, even if the Pope was rooting for your side, so what? It’s the USA that has the power and the influence and hands out the subsidies and the weaponry. Vatican policy towards Israel is an irrelevance.
But the movie, shot on location in and around Jerusalem with the enthusiastic co-operation of the Israeli authorities, interests me in two ways.
Firstly, in its treatment of Palestinians. There is only one ‘good’ Palestinian character. He is the simple shopkeeper, in whose back garden the remains are uncovered. He co-operates with the authorities. But sadly he is at the mercy of the PFJ (“the Popular Front for Jerusalem”), a gang of Palestinian fanatics who threaten him, let off a small explosive in his shop to terrorise him into submission, and in the end shoot him in the stomach. The Palestinians let off a car bomb, causing carnage and blowing up an orthodox Jew. They open fire with machine guns in the street. They abduct the archaeologist’s children. And when the evil Palestinian terrorist leader finally gets his hands on the bones of Christ, and is cornered by Israeli troops, what does he do? He blows himself and our saviour’s remains into smithereens!
Yup, that’s Palestinians for you. They’re so demented they’d even blow up Jesus.
In contrast, the Israelis are presented quite differently. The orthodox Jews seem crazy, but turn out to have a leader who is wise and reasonable. Moshe Cohen is a likeable hard-headed wise-guy negotiator. The army is neutral. And, hey, with shaven-headed vicious murderous Palestinian thugs lurking, who can blame them for holding all that weaponry?
The history of the modern Middle East is acknowledged just once. There’s a scene where the priest comes to the archaeologist’s home and looks at a framed photo of a man in uniform. It’s her husband. “He died in Lebanon,” she intones solemnly. (“So, he was a war criminal” Antonio Banderas doesn’t reply.)
Worst of all is the presentation of SOCIETY. Somehow this is a land where there are no roadblocks or segregation, and where Palestinians live alongside Israelis in a nice sunny place where everybody just goes about their business. Such a pity those crazy Arab terrorists have to spoil it for everyone.
Eric Lurio, reviewing the movie for ‘The Greenwich Village Gazette’, thought the movie was crap, too, but that if you could bear to watch it, “it might make the Middle East situation easier to understand”. Jesus!
And talking of The Man I should mention that at the end of the movie there’s a twist. It turns out they weren’t the bones of our saviour after all. Phew! The Pope can sleep soundly tonight.
What secondly interests me about this movie is the question of artistic responsibility. What would we think of Alfred Hitchcock if he’d gone off to the Third Reich and made a thriller in which the bad guys were Jews, the Gestapo were represented as a neutral law and order organisation and Hitler’s Germany was presented as a pleasant everyday sort of place? Or if Michael Caine had starred in a thriller made in apartheid South Africa, where the bad guys were vicious, evil members of the African National Congress and the good guys were brave white cops?
Questions like this obviously don’t trouble some members of the acting profession or some professional musicians. The fact that they don’t is perhaps in part a tribute to the effectiveness with which the Israeli state has muffled awareness of its origins and history, its victims, and its fundamental sectarianism.
Among the British loveys in this film (which was apparently shot on location in Israel in 2000) are Olivia Williams, John Shrapnel, Derek Jacobi, Jason Flemyng and Ian McNeice. You may not know all the names but you’d certainly recognise the faces. They pop up in movies and TV dramas all the time.
The dedicated soundtrack music was supplied by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Snell.
Ethnic cleansing? Torture? Sectarianism? Racism?
Nuffink to do with us, guv. We’re just simple entertainers.
If you scrutinise the credits at the end you’ll see that the movie was made with American finance and the collaboration of the “Israel Standards Institute”. What’s more “Product Placement” was organised by an outfit which trades under the brand name “Propaganda”.
Quite.
# posted by Ellis : 6:55 AM
