Marie Madeleine

The 6 stars are for the actors, the quality of the images and the bravery to make a movie about such a controversial subject. I am sadden for the fact that the plot has so many holes that even being a Christian (myself) didn't help. Christ journey during his last 3 years on earth was so immeasurably profound it changes lives to this day, 2000 years after. I was expecting that bringing the role of Mary Magdalene into light would make a fabulous complement. It didn't.

Well I really wanted to love it, but I couldn't. I had been waiting for this to come out ever since it unexpectedly got shelved during the whole Weinstein fiasco. I finally saw it on Good Friday l, at the only Bay Area theater that was showing it - in San Jose - which surprised me.

I did love the premise, and I thought a movie from Mary Magdalene's point of view was a great idea. But I couldn't feel a connection to the characters. It seemed Phoenix's Jesus was at times too angry and distant. The editing seemed off too. Scenes jumped from one to another and I found myself yawning a few times. But Mara did a great job. I gave it a 7.

Mary Magdalene is story of the woman who is known in many Christian traditions as the "apostle to the apostles". Mary is a central figure in later apocryphal Gnostic Christian writings, which portray her as Jesus's closest disciple and the only one who truly understood his teachings. In this film, Mary Magdalene's closeness to Jesus results in tension with the other disciples, particularly Peter, as the film highlights the fact that women in Judaean society were considered inferior to men.

It's a 2 millennium old story for our times and director Garth Davis casts a perfect Rooney Mara as the intelligent, independent thinking Mary, who is drawn away from a life of midwifery and arranged marriage in her small fishing village, to following and seeking inspiration from the quietly charismatic Jesus, played convincingly by Joaquin Phoenix.

The Italian locations dutifully and realistically stand in for the countryside around the Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem and the film is produced with obvious reverence for its subjects.It succeeds in conveying the collective Jewish belief and yearning for the coming of a Messiah, a powerful political leader who would unite the tribes of Israel into standing up against the yolk of Roman oppression.

Unfortunately the pacing of this film, which is not overfilled with dialogue at the best of times, is frequently glacial in nature. There are countless silent pauses where various characters gaze soulfully, sometimes mournfully, into each others' eyes. Mary is an entrancing character, but her story, both biblically and as played out in this movie, is just frustratingly sparse. We want to be given more details about her life story, but it just doesn't occur and it is pretty clear that both female script writers were never intent on veering away from their various Gospel sources of reference. As such, momentum falters alarmingly, especially during the second act, where Mary is sidelined as a bit player to Jesus's wandering mission. We end up being left with a long, but ironically too lean and somewhat bland story of the woman who is becoming more recognised as the 'First of the Apostles". I think she deserved a story more inspiring and energetic than Mary Magdalene ends up being.

Great acting, great perspective, great story.

It is strange that this idea could put a bad taste into someones mouth- that it is OUR responsibility to save the world - pretty much the opposite message of "sola fide" - the doctrine introduced by the Lutheran church that it is only through faith in the divinity of Jesus alone and not through works we achieve "salvation". Centuries of self-identified "Christians" with no real love of peace, truth or compassion at the helm of the West and look where it has gotten us... millions of Christians await Christ's return yet make no serious effort to live by Christ's teachings. That is the sore thumb and the tragedy of many of the efforts of modern evangelists

Ironically, a movie that is supposed to be about Mary Magdalene is the best cinematic telling of the Jesus story that I have seen - it takes care to communicate understandably how Jesus's real teachings could become skewed by disciples who had their own ideas about the way they thought things should be, or would prefer them to be. They helped create in their folly a system of belief which removes personal responsibility and promotes complacent self righteousness in apathy which seems so common today.

The message of personal responsibility is so crucial in these times when it feels like the world is speeding ever so quickly towards irreversible change - where that change is directed is up to us and if we are all sitting on our thumbs we may neglect our own responsibility and contributions in the matter. That someone could be made angry or put off by this idea seems incomprehensible to me

I know, I know its supposed to be about Mary, and it does a little bit of that, but it is also very much about how she sees Jesus. She sees him as a man carrying around the weight of the world on his shoulders, and she understands his true message when many miss it. In this way she serves a blank slate that we the audience can become.

She understands Jesus' true meaning behind the words in a way that only those outside of the story can. She as well as Jesus' mother both know that a gristly fate awaits him - just as we do.

I spent some time looking through the reviews, - many of the most negative reviews are arguing that it gets a lot wrong. So I wanted to argue a few of their points:

One reviewer says its wrong because Jesus didn't baptize Mary. The truth is we don't know. John 3:22 says Jesus spent some time baptizing, but then John 4:2 says Jesus wasn't baptizing, it was his disciples, but both of these moments are about Jesus' time in Judea - not Galilee, where Mary was likely baptized. It seems like in larger groups of baptisms, Jesus would have had his disciples share the work, and in a personal moment like baptizing Mary, (who many have suggested was funding these excursions), its likely in my mind that Jesus would have baptized her.

The same reviewer said that this film refutes that she had 7-demons cast out of her by Jesus (Luke 8:2). This is wrong by all accounts of Luke 8 that I can see. The Bible doesn't say Jesus cast the demons out. The Bible says that traveling with him included Mary who had had 7 demons cast out. The film shows her family attempting to cast demons out of her, and then Jesus sees her and says he sees no demons. This seems to fit well within the possibility of scripture.

It bothers me when people use scripture to try to refute or prove things. If you pull just a single line, you're missing the picture. And just because someone can quickly reference scripture, does not make them right.

Several said Jesus should appear in his early thirties. Again, we don't know. He was most likely between 33-36. The only mention in the Bible says he was younger than fifty.

Some people thought nobody looked semitic, but the Levant was one of the big melting pots, and there's not a lot of research on where all the white people were in 33 AD.

I agree they shouldn't have made Peter acting all righteous and jealous as he was in the Book of Thomas. Why must we tear someone down in order to lift another up? Also the trope of Angry Black Man... no thanks. Many called this a politically correct take on Jesus - and I'd argue that for this reason above that this was far from politically correct, and only reinforces bad stereotypes about gender and color.

Still one of my favorite films, hope this is useful for someone.