A brilliant piece of work almost ruined as the sound system carried a constant
tone, so high in pitch that dogs in the neighbourhood must have been in pain,
over a soundtrack wound up so loud that the automatic limiters cut in on a
regular basis.This is not the way I want to enjoy a film and I'm sure as hell it's not
how the director, producer and distributor want it to be presented.
Bad venues beget bad reviews and ensure the decline in audience figures which
will eventually destroy the industry.
Which is a shame as there are many great films out there; Stigmata is one
of them.
Centre of stage is Frankie Paige, a self-confessed Atheist hairdresser, who
suddenly become afflicted by stigmata after receiving the stolen Crucifix of a
dead priest, Father Alameida.
Hot on her heals, to investigate the case, comes scientist and priest Father
Andrew Kiernan who is charged by the Vatican to put down tales of miracle
sightings, claims of stigmata and other 'revelations' and to restore peoples'
faith in the Catholic Church as the true interface between Man and God.
This is the third film which digs at the Catholic Church in as many months,
following Dogma and John Carpenter's
Vampires but its questioning is much more subtle.
Stigmata can lay claim to a stake in the thriller genre category as well as
in horror as the story unfolds cleverly leaving us wondering exactly what
its outcome will be.
From the initial investigations by Kiernan of the death of Father Alameida in
a small Brazilian town we are taken to Pittsburgh, where Frankie receives the
dead priest's Crucifix and receives the first stigmata, through the Vatican
where Cardinal Houseman seems overly eager to get Kiernan off the Alameida case
and onto Frankie's. Although we don't know it yet, the seeds for the resolution
of the movie are sown.
As Frankie receives further stigmata, wounds appearing upon her body in the
places where Christ received them as he was crucified, we are drawn into her
pain by the use of brilliantly interwoven flashes of a man being crucified;
simple cinemagraphic trickery with a powerful edge to it.
Only when Frankie starts to write pages of ancient Aramaic texts upon her
apartment wall do we, and Kiernan, discover that she is a possessed woman.
Kiernan contacts a translator in the Vatican with news of what he has found
but his information is intercepted by Cardinal Houseman who seizes Frankie
and, rather bizarely, attempts to kill her to stop her message being heard.
This is where the film makes its greatest attack on the Catholic Church; that
it is self serving, self protecting and has wrongly positioned itself as the
only legitimate way to God.
Revealing that Frankie's writings are a long lost Gospel, written in the
language of Jesus Himself, the fear is that this Gospel, documenting the very
instructions of Jesus as to how His Church should continue after His death,
the Vatican has no choice but to repress such writings to retain its own
position.
A case can be made for such claims, and it is obvious that the writings alluded
to in the film are those of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dismissed by Catholics, and
others, but suggesting that the Vatican would kill to prevent their acceptance
is a little far fetched; they've done quite well at putting this piece of work
down over the years without such extreme acts.
But although unrealistic, the film makes it point. It managed to do it equally
well, without such dramatics, with its revelations that those working on
translating and championing unacceptable works have been deterred or
excommunicated for their efforts.
Contrasting the wounds on Frankie's wrists with the nails driven through
Christ's hands, as depicted in art and on Crucifixes, showed that the Church's
iconography doesn't always tie in with reality; if the Church can lie about
this how much more of the truth has it distorted or lied about ?
This isn't an accusation which is just levied at the Catholic Church; it is
one which all religions must answer; "We are blind men in a cave looking for
a candle which went out thousands of years ago", sits well with many people
who wish to find the truth but have become disillusioned with
organised religion, their scriptures and teachings.
The film is not anti-religion; but it is highly critical. The development of
stigmata in Frankie is done powerfully and not provocatively.
Although the stigmata is really only the vehicle to take us to the goal where
we must question the Church and its workings, it is a substantial part of the
film and is delivered well.
The condemnation of the Church is, as I've said, in parts reasonable and, at
times, excessively exaggerative.
The almost romantic pre-climatic scene was hard to fathom; its purpose rather
confusing. The link between Frankie and St Francis of Assissis was pushed
down our throats for no good reason, especially as the link had already been
made, in a more subdued key, earlier on.
The closing credit statement that the lost Gospel of
St Thomas had been found, as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in 1945, was
correct but the suggestion that it has been suppressed by the Church and is
treated as heresy is not.
Whilst there has been much debate surrounding the importance and relevance of
the find, and some researchers have been highly criticised by the church
authorities, and have been critical in their own responses, copies of the
work have been available in print for many decades and the scroll's contents
have been open for public inspection for some time.
Wainwright, despite this error, has delivered an excellent piece of work that
was dynamic and flowing. A thunderous soundtrack wrapped many great moments of
cinematography giving us a film which moved deftly from A to B
with only some slight jerkiness near the end.
A shame that it was almost spoilt by a cinema's c--p amplification system.
