A theologian with a theatre arts degree suggests films to help one appreciate Lent and the Sacrifice of Christ. A couple are obvious, two not so much.
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Fron Crisis
By Monica Miller, PhD
Lenten film recommendations for visual learners: Films that illuminate Christ's Passion and help unite our sacrifices to His on the Cross.
The intent of this article is to introduce readers to films that, due to their themes and focus, can deepen the Lenten spiritual experience through the profundity of their theological insights. So, let us begin.
Whistle Down the Wind (1961)
Whistle Down the Wind, directed by British film director Bryan Forbes, is described by Wikipedia as a “crime drama.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, this quiet, low-budget, black and white movie, which takes place in the British countryside, is a sensitive, profound, and insightful retelling of the life of Christ, climaxing with the Savior’s Passion, all seen through the eyes of children.
It stars British child actress Hayley Mills, certainly one of the best child actresses of all time and the daughter of Oscar winner John Mills (Ryan’s Daughter) and author Mary Hayley Bell, who wrote the 1958 novel upon which the movie is based. The movie also features 27-year-old Alan Bates in his first credited screen role.
The movie is focused on the experiences of three children growing up on a Lancashire farm: Kathy, played by 14-year-old Mills; her sister Nan; and their brother, Charlie. This film is a parable about faith as exemplified by the innocence of children who mistake a murderer hiding in their barn for Jesus Christ.
Early in the film, Kathy expresses doubt that Jesus was really who He said He was, saying to the shock of her sister, Nan, “after all He’s dead.” But late at night, when Kathy checks on kittens the children rescued from the farmhand who tried to drown them, she comes across the hungry and exhausted Blakey sleeping in the barn. She asks, “Who’s there?” The startled, half-awake Blakey responds by swearing: “Jesus Christ.” Though he took the Lord’s name in vain, Kathy believes that this criminal is really Jesus. With his bearded, dark features, Blakey looks like the Jesus of a holy card she keeps in her bedroom—a Jesus embracing children.
Whistle Down the Wind takes the viewer though the life of Christ as experienced by the farm children and, eventually, the children of the nearby village—from the Jesus “asleep in the hay,” to the denial of Peter, to the betrayal of Judas (caused by little brother Charlie, who loses his faith when his kitten dies and the Blakey Jesus doesn’t raise it from the dead), the film climaxes with the Passion.
The goal of the children is to keep Jesus hidden from the adults, as they are afraid that if the “grown-ups,” who are usually distracted and indifferent, find him, their discovery will lead to Jesus’ arrest and execution. And once Blakey realizes the children believe he is Jesus, the murderer takes advantage of his false identity.
The Hayley Mills character never loses faith and does all she can to facilitate Blakey’s escape. Her steadfast love brings the hardened criminal to tears just before the police descend on the barn. If anything, this story takes seriously Christ’s teaching, “Unless you become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The movie ends poignantly when two little girls arrive too late to meet Jesus but Kathy assures them that they will see him because “he’s going to come again.”
This film is a parable about faith as exemplified by the innocence of children who mistake a murderer hiding in their barn for Jesus Christ.The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
If you have never watched a silent film, this is the one you do not want to miss. I confess I am very biased, as this is indeed my favorite movie. It is a cinematic masterpiece aptly described by IMDb as being “celebrated for its innovative close-ups, emotional intensity, and pioneering silent film techniques.”
But why watch it for Lent? Viewers are given a front row seat in the drama of Joan of Arc’s persecution and martyrdom as the movie wades into the deep end of her refusal to cave-in to her persecutors efforts to deny her visions, her call from God. The film features Joan’s incredible fortitude that climaxes with her being burned at the stake.
The movie was directed by Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer, who was commissioned by the French production company Société Générale des Films, and stars Maria Falconetti in the title role—and it is the only movie she ever made. Her performance is critically acclaimed as one of the most compelling to ever grace the silver screen.
While praised for Dreyer’s groundbreaking cinematic techniques—close-ups of actors without makeup; camera angles against stark, one may even say stylized, modernistic scenery—this film is loaded with profound religious symbolism with particular reverence for the Holy Eucharist. The film achieves great emotional intensity caused by the dramatic contrast between those who persecute Joan and those who support her when, just before being led to her execution, some judges exhibit true remorse—incredible acting though facial expressions alone!
The movie will startle viewers by its unprecedented upside-down images of soldiers readying the pyre—images that make the statement that when truth is denied, the world is indeed upside down. Also disturbing is the violence that erupts as the corpse of Joan is seen burning in the flames—incredible pyrotechnics for the time. The violence is caused when soldiers seek to suppress the crowd that shows sympathy for Joan—climaxing with a drawbridge rising up to illustrate the divide between good and evil. And Joan’s execution takes place while the townspeople of the village of Rouen stage a carnival—the insipidness of the carnival’s worldly entertainment contrasted with the seriousness of Joan’s agony.
For 50 years, the original version of Dreyer’s masterpiece was lost. As explained by Far Out Magazine:
The Passion of Joan of Arc was controversial from the very start. Hardline French nationalists thought it was outrageous that the story of one of France’s most iconic figures was being told by a foreigner. Government censors working alongside the Archbishop of Paris made several cuts to the film prior to its release, which infuriated Dreyer. Things went from bad to worse when a fire at a Berlin film studio annihilated the only remaining original cuts, meaning that Dreyer’s true vision was now just a legend. That was, until one fateful day in 1981.
A janitor at the Dikemark Hospital, a psychiatric institution in a suburb of Oslo, Norway, was cleaning out a broom closet when he discovered three film canisters hidden away.… After being analyzed by Norwegian Film Institute, it was revealed that one of the canisters contained the original, unedited cut of The Passion of Joan of Arc, as Dreyer had intended it to be viewed.
The movie was restored in the 1980s; and a new film score, Voices of Light, was added in 1994—an incredible composition that beautifully supports the drama of Falconetti’s performance.
Last year, I had my students watch this film and provide their own critique. Here is one:
Throughout the movie the Cross looms as both symbol and reality—the sign of suffering transformed by love. Joan’s Passion mirrors that of Christ: innocence condemned, truth mocked, and yet glory hidden within humiliation. In this inverted world, where the sacred is profaned and divine inspiration is called madness, Joan’s martyrdom restores balance. The film’s uses of inversion—even the image of an upside-down cross becomes a prophecy of her victory: what appears as defeat in the eyes of the world is, in truth, her spiritual triumph.
The Passion of Joan of Arc is the perfect Lenten movie, as Falconetti’s performance brings us into what it means to suffer and sacrifice for the love of God as this saint follows the path of Jesus to the Cross.
The Passion of Joan of Arc is the perfect Lenten movie, as Falconetti’s performance brings us into what it means to suffer and sacrifice for the love of God as this saint follows the path of Jesus to the Cross.The Passion of the Christ (2004)
The Mel Gibson movie featuring actor Jim Caviezel in the title role is unquestionably the most theologically informed movie about Our Lord. This is not “just” a mounting of the Gospel story of Our Lord’s Passion. Ultimately, this intense piece of filmmaking is a statement on the meaning of Christ’s death. This author watched the movie eight times in the theater to prepare for my book-length commentary, The Theology of The Passion of the Christ. Here is a link to my interview with the late Al Kresta of Ave Maria Radio that provides my film commentary.
Much of the Gibson film is based on the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich as recorded in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Incredibly, 70 percent of what one finds in the Dolorous Passion is incorporated into the movie, though Emmerich was not given film credit. However, the theological foundation of this Passion film is Genesis 3:15—called the Protoevangelium—the “First Good News,” when God announces to Satan: “I will place enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head while you strike at his heel.”
This theme is set from the opening scene of the movie—Christ’s agony in the garden—where He contends with the temptations of Satan, climaxing with Jesus indeed stomping the head of a serpent. The movie is a contest then between Satan and Christ—and also between the Woman and the Tempter: Mary who helps Jesus accomplish His salvific mission in contrast to Satan who seeks to thwart its fulfilment.
This is a very violent movie—saturated with the Blood of Christ: His Sacred Blood poured, dripping, spurted, and pooled; it is a sign of Christ’s priesthood as the priest offering the sacrifice. Jesus doesn’t just wear a read garment as do Catholic priests—he literally wears red.
The Gibson film is also very Eucharistically-focused—as no other movie makes the overt connection between the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Last Supper. One way this connection is superbly demonstrated is when, on Calvary, soldiers strip Jesus of His clothes, readying Him for the Sacrifice, followed immediately by the unfolding of a napkin in the Upper Room, revealing the sacrificial Bread of the Last Supper.
Many Catholics schedule a viewing of this movie as part of their Lenten exercises and for good reason. The Gibson film is an up-close immersion into the sufferings of Christ. And if there is one response when the film is over, it’s the viewer feeling repentance, declaring to Jesus, “I’m sorry.”
Much of the Gibson film is based on the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich as recorded in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.Babette’s Feast (1987)
One may wonder why I would encourage a Lenten viewing of this somewhat obscure Danish film, but this quiet, sensitive movie is appropriate because it is ultimately about the complete sacrifice of the Catholic character, Babette, that mirrors the sacrifice of Christ. The movie, while not well-known, did win the Academy Award for best foreign film.
The plot is focused on two spinster sisters, Martine and Filippa, who are dedicated to continuing their deceased father’s Protestant sect in a remote Danish Jutland seaside village. Motivated by Christ’s teachings to love one’s neighbor, the sisters agree to take in Babette, a desperate, forlorn refugee fleeing the 19th-century anti-Catholic French revolutionary movement.
This incredibly religiously-profound film taking place within a Protestant setting is actually a vindication of the Catholic Faith—especially Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. Trying to spare a “spoiler alert,” let me just say that indeed there is a feast provided by Babette—an exotic and sensuous French banquet that causes spiritual worry and anxiety for the Protestant sisters and the aging members of their small congregation that regularly gathers in their house.
Feeling that they owe something to Babette for her years-long service as their cook and housekeeper, they grant her request to prepare this sumptuous meal so much in contradiction to their Protestant spiritual austerity. The meal is a memorial service for the sisters’ father who would have marked his 100th birthday—this being the first clue that Babette’s feast is a Eucharistic-themed meal. The guests agree to participate, telling themselves that, by practicing a kind of Gnosticism, they actually will not taste any of the food or feel the effects of the intoxicating beverages.
What is achieved through the several courses of the meal are the effects of the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass: reconciliation and forgiveness among the congregants, whose relationships had descended into petty bickering and resentment of past injuries, and joyous celebration of their newfound unity. Needless to say, they discard their Gnostic approach to the meal.
The ultimate Eucharistic critique of Babette’s feast comes from the invited general, Lorens, who once, decades ago, courted Martine only to decide, to his regret, to leave her, finding that he was unable to accept the harsh conditions of Jutland. He recalls a meal that he once enjoyed at a Paris restaurant whose celebrated chef prepared food that “erased the distinction between physical and spiritual eating.”
This film is a very rare insightful treatment on the meaning of sacrifice as related to the Eucharist.
I am confident that should Crisis Magazine readers view any of the films presented in this article, their Lenten journey will be greatly enhanced by these monumental cinematic achievements. And perhaps readers may have suggestions of their own.
Pictured: The US theatrical release poster of The Passion of Joan of Arc
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