Stigmata
Rated
R, Now Showing
Rupert Wainwright's
directorial debut, The Sadness of Sex, won the Best
Film award at the 1996 Slamdance Film Festival.
The true meaning of "passion" is something much different
from our casual reading of the word. In a Rod Stewart song
or in general usage, passion--whether love or hate--is an
ecstatic, overwhelming feeling of intense emotion. In more
heathen circles, passion is something we reserve for our boyfriend,
our family or a hobby; it's certainly not an emotion we feel
for Jesus Christ or, rather, the divine pain and suffering
of Christ bleeding on the cross. That would be too violent,
too personal, too (good heavens!) erotic.
Catholics (and there are plenty of them) understand divine
passion--a suffering reflected in the word's Latin root--and
stress the goodness that must be pursued throughout life.
But within their earthy rituals, how can they not
be tempted by the naked passion of Christ? How can the flesh
and blood of Jesus not turn someone on?
With the benefit of hindsight, Freudian psychology and
Louise Veronica Ciccone (a.k.a. Madonna), it is almost impossible
to separate sex and romance from Catholic passion. Read
chapters from Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine
Love (circa 1373) in which the female mystic describes
not only "the scourging of His tender body," wherein Christ's
pain "was bitter and sharp...full and long lasting" but
also what "endless love" he provided with his "sweet enjoying."
In orgiastic detail, the woman is literally panting over
Christ, raising the question: Just who does Jesus
look like to her anyway? Gabriel Byrne?
It is perfectly appropriate, then, that the latest religious
movie slouching its way toward the cineplex is not only
a film that questions the canons of Christianity via the
past but also one that stars Gabriel Byrne as a priest.
Sign me up for confessional.
Director Rupert Wainwright's Stigmata is a sensual,
intriguing and challenging movie that at times looks like
an extended music video but has much more to it than one
would expect. The film stars Patricia Arquette as Frankie
Page, a 23-year-old Pittsburgh hairdresser, hipster and
avowed atheist whose disbelief is tested when she receives
an old rosary from her mother. Almost immediately upon touching
the beads, Frankie is rushed to the hospital with deep puncture
wounds in each wrist, afflictions that she later learns
to be the first of the five stigmata, the bleeding manifestations
of the sufferings of Christ. The four remaining wounds are
just around the corner: whip lashes on the back, scratches
on the head from the crown of thorns, and a spear hole in
the side. She suffers the second wound on a subway train
where a commuting priest witnesses the miracle. He contacts
Rome, and a Vatican cardinal (Jonathan Pryce) dispatches
priest Andrew Kiernan (Byrne) to meet and investigate young
Frankie. The resulting inquiry not only tests Andrew's own
system of beliefs but challenges the authority of the modern
church and exposes some unsavory hypocrisies along the way.
With Wainright's MTV style of filmmaking, Stigmata could
have easily been as campy as a plastic Jesus, but thankfully
the film is both kitschy and reverent. It's like
Madonna, if the material girl were a little smarter (she
would have killed to play Arquette's part 10 years ago).
Personal as well as topical, the picture takes on some serious
ideas involving spirituality vs. organized religion without
being truly exploitative. It is also a fantastic love story,
one filled with a winking eye for the forbidden. Immensely
erotic, Stigmata soars when the two stars revel in
their chemistry with one another. A lovely and passionate
relationship grows between them, beginning with smiles and
stolen glances, continuing with writhing, heavy breathing
and bleeding, and ending with a surrender of sorts--in the
film's case, a kiss.
How this doesn't come across as cheesy is due largely to
the intelligent acting of the leads. Patricia Arquette,
who often displays a dazed sensuality, is allowed to scream
and quiver, and this is all for the good. Even when speaking
in the voice of a man, she is convincing, and she relays
great sorrow. Byrne is fantastically likable and sensual
as well. In one scene, three whores aggressively flirt with
him as he strolls down the street. Byrne turns, smiles and
reveals his collar. It is probably one of the sexiest moments
of the film, as Byrne's deeply convicted yet conflicted
priest is shown as, indeed, human. We know that he will
"fall" at some point, and we quiver for the rest of the
movie with that anticipation. Passion, both personal and
religious, is truly studied in Stigmata, and it throbs
with a simultaneously sinful and natural power--almost as
if Julian of Norwich had chanted her divine revelations
while listening to Iggy Pop sing "Fall in Love with Me"
(no such luck for Iggy, however; Billy Corgan composed the
film's music). Stigmata is medieval as well as modern,
and it is bloody sexy.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Willamette Week | originally
published September 15,
1999
|
