It may be stupendous ,considering his peaks of film noir in the talkies that so many Duvivier silent movies deal with Christian faith : "Credo ou la tragédie de Lourdes " was the first ,this one is the second,soon followed by "la vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin" ;if it weren't enough, "Haceldama " begins with a picture of Judas' suicide ; and "la divine croisière" follows suit: a message from Virgin Mary telling her to rescue the crew of her father's ship,marooned on an island .But when he filmed "Golgotha"in the thirties,he would have lost his faith ,although the last sequence of " la charrette fantôme (itself a Sjostrom remake) featured a divine intervention .
It is almost sure that Duvivier saw De Mille's first version of "the ten commandments " (1923) in which the director blends the biblical story with a modern tale , in San Francisco. Duvivier introduces scenes of the Passion into the story of a man , blinded by his anarchist views.
"L"agonie de Jerusalem " is nothing but derivative ;one can find terribly preachy , holier-than-thou , Christian propaganda ,you name it, but Duvivier's technique is awesome ;the beginning may seem trite,but from the anarchists meeting on, the film hits its stride and keeps you ,be you a believer or not- in awe .
Unlike De Mille ,who told Mosis' story in his first part,then the story of the McTavish family afterwards, Duvivier intertwined the two plots ; the meeting ,filmed with a mobile camera ,ends with the father's intervention whom the prodigal son disowns : close shots of the faces shows that the father represents the God he turns his back on ;hence Saul's blindness -in both senses of the term.
Back in his family , the anarchist ,encouraged by a former comrade who represents the Devil in the desert , wants to stay true to his would be ideals ."Jerusalem's dying "-check the title- " it'only old walls ,old monuments from a distant past , a city torn between races and religions "
Yet,he asks to be taken to the garden of Gethsemane where he wants to spends a whole night ;Duvivier simply cuts loose all the twenties techniques at his command and lets his inspiration flow and ooze around the heathen hero ;scenes of the Passion intertwines with the present and he has mystic visions ; the director goes as far as to let his hero enter the Gospels scene : for a short while, he becomes Simon of Cyrene and carries the cross; these are shockingly transcendent pictures ,absolutely fascinating in their use of dynamics .
Some Duviviers' recurrent features already surface : justice meted out by a dog attacking Larsac ,who covets Alice ("au royaume des cieux" ,"voici le temps des assassins" ) ; the intertwined stories genre was taken to its absolute perfection with such works as "sous le ciel de Paris".
