![\"Stations](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/440\/2015\/11\/Stations-of-the-Cross.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJesus Camp<\/em> meets Breaking the Waves<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n This nuanced and relentless psychological drama\u00a0draws parallels between the passion of Jesus Christ (hence the title) and\u00a0the struggles of a teen girl to understand and appropriate the intractable religious teachings of the adults in her life. It is\u00a0at turns horrifying and inspiring.<\/span><\/p>\n The thing that elevates it for me is that while it takes on a point of view\u00a0(one that is clarified for me in the final scene), it doesn\u2019t descend into parody or ridicule. Exaggeration? Maybe. The parents, mom especially, are pretty fundamentalist (if fundamentalist Catholicism is even the right label), but\u00a0it is easy enough to see that the film isn\u2019t condemning true religion so much as\u00a0\u00a0fanatical misappropriations of it. <\/span><\/p>\n And yet\u2026starting in the very first scene, the line between genuine, helpful, instructive doctrinal teaching and misapplied brainwashing is very, very skillfully blurred. If the film does nothing else, it reminds us of how vulnerably\u00a0thin and uncertain that line is. Hence the \u201cterrifying.\u201d Because it may appear that the only way to avoid being on the wrong side of it is to eschew religion altogether, and that\u2019s as unhelpful an answer as saying that you are right and anyone who tries to reason with you is the devil.<\/span><\/p>\n That first scene takes place in Maria\u2019s (Lea van Acken) confirmation class. Her priest calmly but persistently catechizes the class, at times asking Maria to give others a chance to answer. Life begins at conception but spiritual life begins at baptism. What are the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church? Young people are presented with temptations and distractions that threaten to keep them from being pure. Even a young person can be a spiritual warrior.<\/p>\n The priest admonishes: \u201cWhen the final judgment comes, Jesus will ask us how many souls we saved\u201d and \u201cwhether that number could have been more.\u201d \u00a0When the question is posed why children must enter the battle, Maria righteously parrots: \u201cmost so called Catholics attend modern mass.\u201d The workers are indeed few.<\/p>\n The opening station really is a tour-de-force of writing and mise-en-scene. (Each scene is a single shot take, with very little camera movement.) Maria\u2019s teachings make sense in the static confines of her confirmation class or when she is scrupulously led through confession. But when she tries to live our her faith, the world seems a little less black and white. When a schoolmate asks why Maria\u2019s church doesn\u2019t allow females to serve in the service she repeats her teaching that girls could be a distraction to male parishioners. \u201cBut couldn\u2019t boys be a distraction, too, if women look at them?\u201d he asks. Maria refuses to run in gym class until her teacher turns off the Satanic music with its ungodly rhythms.(I think it was Roxette\u2019s \u201cThe Look.\u201d) Her intractable stance makes most of the other kids mock and hate her. Even her own mom berates her for the smallest imperfection, yelling at her for not smiling in a family portrait even after Maria alone has soothed her autistic brother.<\/p>\n There have been plenty of depictions of suffocating and austere religious communities. What elevates the best of them is when there is a complementary vision of a higher way. Although I valued Stations of the Cross<\/em> (\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u00bd<\/span><\/a>) highly, I couldn\u2019t give the extra half star because in some of the best films (like Ordet<\/em>, Babbette\u2019s \u00a0Feast<\/em>, or A Man for All Seasons<\/em>) there is usually a glimpse of \u201ctrue\u201d religion, and I\u2019m not sure I saw it here. Seeing the tragic parts of the story is easy enough, but is religious life only tragedy? Recently on American television the trend has been to show Atheist parents befuddled by their children\u2019s faith. (Think The Good Wife<\/em> and The Americans.<\/em>) Such depictions are perhaps unavoidably patronizing, since the line between child-like and childish has always been hard to negotiate. Maria may very well be a saint, but has anyone ever been bullied into holiness? And if she is the depiction of pure innocence, why do we long for her to break away?<\/p>\n Maria is shown as sincere here, but is she a saint as her mother insists, or a pitiable victim? The film\u2019s final scene, I would argue, leans towards the latter, as the camera finally pans, situating Maria\u2019s fate as part of a broader history that will be replicated. But don\u2019t look away too quickly, because while the camera pans sideways, it also moves our gaze up. The last station of the cross is not the end of the gospel story, and Maria may have a heavenly parent who is not quite so impossible to please.<\/p>\n Stations of the Cross<\/em> is available on DVD from Film Movement<\/a>.<\/p>\n