[REVIEW] Jesus of Montréal

I watched Jesus of Montréal this evening, from 7 o'clock to almost 9 o'clock, as part of my medieval devotional literature class. There were pizza, and drinks, and pears, all thoughtfully provided by Dr. Pappano. Only two people--one other English graduate student, and his girlfriend--appeared; unfortunate, this, since the Ellis Hall auditorium is quite large.

As I've come to expect from Arcand, it's a fantastic film. Ebert's review touches on only some of the reasons that the class watched the film. Dr. Pappano saw in the film, with its close integration into the Montréal city landscape and Québécois post-Catholic culture, interesting parallels with the passion plays held in many English towns in the late Middle Ages, with their close links to local cultures and folkways. You definitely saw that in the whole adaptation of the Passion, as the actors managed to successfully assimilate the latest discoveries to the Passion story to create a very topical updating of Christ's message.

(Interestingly, Gilles Pelletier, the actor playing Father Leclerc, also features in another Arcand film, 2003's The Barbarian Invasions. He also plays a priest in this film, one showing off a church basement full of Catholic sacred art to a French auctioneer, only to be told that outside of its cultural heritage the stockpile is valueless. They could well be the same characters--certainly they're both priests beaten down by their hierarchies and by popular disinterest. It'd be interesting if Jesus of Montréal could be assimilated to that filmic universe.)

I'm still thinking about my reactions to Jesus of Montréal, in part because we'll be discussing it (along with The Passion and a Middle English text) tomorrow in class. It was definitely a powerful film, and it did manage to achieve its goal of an intelligent renovation of Christ's mission and death. I can't help but feel that if Christianity is ever revived in the First World outside of the United States, it will have to be through like means. Traditional faith just might not work any more; a faith acknowledging the profound need for belief, and the doubt always present in the minds of believers, might have to do. It's certainly the only sort of faith I can see myself embracing.

[BRIEF NOTE] More on Anti-Semitism and The Passion

It looks like I was right about The Passion reinforcing existing anti-Semitism. From Al Bawaba:

Gibson's film has stirred a religious controversy in Kuwait between majority Sunni Muslims who oppose the movie and the emirate's Shi'ite Muslims who call for showing it. The authorities, meanwhile, have not decided either way. Tabtabai went so far as to outlaw the film's screening by any Muslim country and But the emirate's leading Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Muhri said there was nothing wrong in showing the film and called on the authorities to approve it.

According to the news agency AFP, it was argued that the film is a good opportunity to reveal the crimes committed by Jews against the Christ and many other (religious) prophets. "We sincerely respect the Jewish religion and Jews, but not the Jewish Zionists, and we believe in Jesus and Moses like we believe in our own prophet," he added.

[NON-BLOG] Drinking Culture Question

Today's a beautiful day in Kingston, at least relatively speaking compared to the drab cool days of winter hopefully behind us all in southern Ontario. I'll be checking papers, I fear, but I hope to spend some time outside. If worst comes to worst, my office at least has a window. Later tonight, I'll be going to Tango as part of an English graduate students' celebration of the end of term. I've got half of my TA essays to check, true, and three essays to write, but there's enough time. Besides, tapas are fun. And I've got a legitimate excuse to wear my blazer!

This impending visit started me wondering. It's almost a truism in Western popular culture that people who, after they've been drinking a lot, do embarrassing or stupid things claim that they were so drunk that they had no idea what they were doing. I never got into drinking culture in high school, or even as an undergraduate student, so I was never able to judge the accuracy of these claims first-hand.

As a graduate student, though, I've probably indulged more frequently since August than in the rest of my life to date. Possibly my self-education is lacking in certain unspoken elements that people who begin drinking earlier in their lives absorb; one of the major flaws of self-education, as I understand the concept, is that you miss out on the practical experience that provides a necessary supplement to whatever theory you've learned. Regardless of this, my experience to date has been that while excessive drinking removes my inhibitions, it doesn't make me act in a way disregarding my wishes, instead simply removing my inhibitions to behave in certain ways. I knew what I was doing, after drinking; I was simply more likely to do it.

I think that this personal discovery of mine, contradicting as it does cultural dogma, can be explained in one of three ways, some of which are mutually contradictory:

• People know this, but just don't talk about it.


• I'm an exceptional drunk.


• I just haven't drunk enough.

Thoughts?