philpaine

Whoever was responsible for this abomination didn't have the slightest idea what the original film was about. The original was an intelligent study of the tension between ancient Pagan and Christian values, done with wit and irony. This remake is a laughable travesty written by somebody who knows absolutely nothing about either Christianity OR Paganism. Every key concept in the original is missing, or garbled. The most important aspect of the pagan culture (that it delights in nature and sex, and is joyous and festive --- beautifully portrayed in the movie) is completely absent. The pagans are portrayed as grim, shuffling fanatics, instead. In the original, the point is that the policeman, while he is stiffly pious and puritanical, nevertheless faces his martyrdom bravely, sincere in his faith. You are supposed to laugh at him in the beginning, but slowly come to respect him in the end. All of this was completely over the heads of the nitwits who made this remake. How could this have even gotten off the ground as a project? The real horror is that a classic film has been remade by complete idiots. For that kind of sacrilege, it would be nice if human sacrifice was still an option.

I first saw this film with a roomful of friends, some of South Asian background, some not, but all Canadians raised in Toronto. I think we all enjoyed it more for its "Toronto-ness" than for anything as dourly serious as "identity politics". It had the feel of our city, and the same goofiness that you would see in Strange Brew. Seeing the venerable Saeed Jaffrey as the God Krishna in a Leaf's goalie uniform had us rolling on the floor with laughter. And the same actor as the long-suffering postal clerk, to whom Krishna delivers the rarest Canadian stamp, but is unwilling to sell it either to satisfy his wife's craving for appliances or the government's pressure, is the Canadian Everyman in a nutshell.

I saw this recently on a faded old VHS tape, and remembered it dimly. Looking at it now, it seems charming.

When it was first released, it was recognized by pretty much everyone as a spoof of coming out as a gay teenager. To hammer the point home, the mother is seen reading a paperback copy of "1 Teenager In 10", the most popular coming out book of the time. David Warner hams it up as the persecuting vampire hunter [= gay-hating evangelist], who is of course a self-loathing closet case. The list of sight gags and in-jokes that were included to make sure nobody missed the point would be too long to go into. The producers were having some good-natured fun, and hoping, no doubt, to lighten-up as well as to enlighten.

But I have no clue how a teenage audience would look at this film, nowadays. In some places, where there is education and culture, the terrifying ordeals that gay teens had to go through are a thing of the past. But I'm sure there are plenty of dark, nasty corners of our continent where it's just as bad as it always was.