"Love will cost you dearly. It will pierce your heart.
But in the end, love will save the world."
Hello everyone!
I don't usually watch or consider movies with any type of religious message, although granted I suppose Quo Vadis could definitely land on that list ... but I digress.
This one kind of fell into my lap completely by accident because I thought the trailer screenshot looked nice.
Then I watched the trailer and decided, hey, I could watch this.
This weekend was the time I decided I was actually going to watch, and I have to say I enjoyed it, as a casual viewer who only has the most basic knowledge of religious tenements, and who was never brought up religious.
I don't think I have anything even remotely close to this particular story, so you won't find any links down at the bottom of the page, for once.
Mary tells the story of how Jesus' mother came to be - and, this is me saying it without intending to be disrespectful or anything, but it basically reads as a long, long list of errands God had Gabriel run so that things lined up just right and Jesus was born.
Adam and Eve might have been the first humans, but Gabriel was the first courier.
Joachim and Anne desperately want a child, to no avail, so Joachim goes fasting into the desert where God takes pity on him and sends Gabriel to tell the parents they would have a daughter, but that they would have to send her to the Second Temple in Jerusalem when he came again.
Mary, the aforementioned daughter, is a bright, intelligent, vivacious child, who doesn't understand why her parents are suddenly sending her away, but she takes to life at the temple with childish loyalty and understanding, although she's possibly wondering why the heck there's this creep running around who knows her name but seems to want to drag her out to ... have fun?
Lucifer would have to step it up a notch, honestly, as Gabriel expels him from the temple, and Mary casually begins a journey of good deeds (feeding the poor etc.) while Anthony Hopkins' King Herod commits unspeakable crimes in the background (this includes, but is not limited to doing away with his brother-in-law and blinding the head of the Temple with a crown that reminds me remarkably of the thorny one from, oh, say, thirty years later).
During this time is when Gabriel pops up once again, to show Joseph of Nazareth, working on the aqueduct at the time, that hunting for ducks might be better around the river bend, aka, where Mary's washing clothes.
The dummy drops into the river to try and help her retrieve an item, which she skillfully fishes out with a long pole on her own, just to prove she doesn't actually need this crazy boy who she isn't sure can even swim.
This doesn't deter him, however, and he makes the journey to her parents to ask for her hand in marriage, and this stumps Mary when her mother comes to tell her, all happy that her daughter will avoid perpetual virginity and innocence.
Of course, this is just the beginning, because even while Mary's pondering her fate, Gabriel comes a-visiting again, this time to inform her that God has chosen her for his vessel, and she will carry his child.
Why God couldn't wait for her to actually be married to Joseph before this is beyond me, because of course someone snitches that she's pregnant out-of-wedlock, so she gets kicked out of the Temple, then her mother sends her over to her sister for safety, although again, for some reason, Mary returns when she's just before her due date to see whether or not she can chat it out with her father.
This might have gone well and good if not for the fact she's seen, and news about her supposed infidelity to Joseph runs amok, and while Joseph tries to defend her honour, he only gets walloped for his efforts, and wakes solely because Gabriel gives him a long-suffering sigh and a prod.
The two youths face each other again just as Lucifer incites a mob to stone Mary, but Joseph defends and rescues her, promising to love her and the baby, without judgement. They get married in a hurried, quiet ceremony, then flee to Bethlehem as unrest rises, and zealots search for the unborn Messiah so they can go against Herod's rule.
Joachim unfortunately doesn't make it through this journey, dying in a confrontation with nomads, and once in Bethlehem, Mary actually gets kidnapped by Lucifer, but Joseph once again saves her, and finds shelter for her to give birth despite the fact no inn will take them in.
Oh, and some unfortunate soul actually tells Herod about everyone waiting for the birth of the true King of Jews, a title he kind of sort of claims for himself, so naturally he retaliates with the casual violence I feel Hopkins pulled out of his Silence of the Lambs hat, saying every infant boy in Bethlehem should be put to death - except Mary's kid (this leads into a funny as heck scene where he's left alone in a hall filled with crying babies, and none of them Mary's).
With Herod's captain of the guard on their tail, Joseph and Mary flee, making their way towards Egypt, getting rid of said captain in a fiery confrontation at a homestead in the middle of nowhere, then pause their journey to bring Jesus to the Temple where Mary was raised, and that's where the story ends, as he is about to be baptized.
It kind of ends right at the beginning of everything, honestly, and to be fair I was expecting ... more from this movie, even if it did deliver a whole lot.
But it doesn't give me much about MARY, and I'd have loved to actually see more of her, specifically, outside of her being simply a vessel for God. What about her relationship with Joseph? Her determination to see good in the world and do good no matter what? I feel like this movie is ripe for a sequel, because before Jesus grew up to do his own list of things we remember him for, Mary and Joseph had to get him there, and there's so much canvas to cover and colour in.
I'm kind of hoping Netflix chooses to do it, actually, but for a movie as it is, it's okay and entertaining enough, as well as educational up to a point. You can only do so much in about an hour and a half of screen time, after all!
But it's a good watch, just the same.
xx
*images and video not mine
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