What could be sadder for lovers of great movies than a case of missed opportunity? So many films are so piddling in their ambition, scope and purpose that, as jaded moviegoers, we crave that rare film that will tackle monumental themes, fearless of consequences and immune to compromise.
`The Body' had the potential to be one of the most provocative and controversial films of recent times a film so challenging in its theme that it would make `The Last Temptation of Christ' look like a Sunday School lesson. Let's face it: you don't win popularity contests by challenging the very foundation of one of the world's core religions (as the brouhaha over `Temptation' a dozen or so years ago testified). Alas, for all its potential for greatness, `The Body,' after displaying the temerity to pick up the ball and run with it, fumbles badly long before it makes it out of home territory.
The premise of the film is daring, ingenious and courageous: an archaeologist, a young Jewish woman named Sharon Golban, has uncovered what could well turn out to be the find to end all finds the body of a crucified man laid in a rich man's tomb, in other words, the possibly unresurrected body of Jesus Christ. The implications of this discovery for history, for religion, for the world as a whole would, of course, be overwhelming and mind-boggling. However, a theme of such shattering monumental proportions cries out for a filmmaker of commensurate stature to cope with the many moral complexities that such a premise lends itself to. Unfortunately, writer/director Jonas McCord is not that filmmaker. I haven't read the novel (written by Richard Ben Sapir) upon which the film is based, but I can attest to the fact that, after an intriguing beginning, `The Body' falls far short of its very real promise. In many ways, the film is a maddening tease, promising to be a morally and intellectually challenging experience, yet in the end leaving us feeling empty, compromised and cheated.
So where exactly does the film go wrong? For one thing the scope of the film is simply too small. A story of this size needs to be dealt with on a more global scale. The implications of such a discovery would most likely turn the world as we know it upside down and, thus, we yearn for a treatment that would be commensurate with that possibility. Somehow, the characters that have been chosen to act out the drama fail to fire up our imaginations. Sharon, the archaeologist, is aided in her research by a hunky Central American Jesuit priest named Father Gutierrez (Antonio Banderas) whom the Vatican has chosen (for truly obscure reasons) to essentially debunk the finding. (As in virtually every film in which they appear, the Catholic hierarchy is portrayed as an assortment of nefarious, two-faced, worldly villains whose only goal is to maintain their power at any and all costs). The injection of Father Gutierrez into Sharon's world leads to a few insightful clashes between science on the one hand and faith on the other - as well as a lot of predictable romantic palaver between the two principals. The movie does address the issue of whether or not a person's faith in God (or Christianity in general) would somehow be annihilated if the resurrection could be proved a falsehood. Derek Jacoby, as a dedicated archaeologist/priest, answers that question one way, while Father Gutierrez answers it another. The film also makes an effort to explore the psyche of the dedicated archaeologist who puts all her faith in reason and has none left over for God. She also realizes that she has the power to thrust the world into a spiritual turmoil the likes of which it has never seen before and she begins to question whether even her own dedication to truth and science can justify such an act.
At such times, the film has a certain ring of truth about it. But, perhaps through fear of stepping on too many toes or seeing too many picketers outside the theatres, McCord keeps cutting away from the central story to feature a truly ludicrous and uninteresting subplot about a group of Palestinian terrorists who are attempting to `kidnap' the remains so they can be used as the ultimate bargaining chip should the Catholic Church decide to support Israel in keeping Jerusalem out of Palestinian hands. (McCord seems less concerned about Palestinian protestors than Christian ones). Thus, at crucial moments when the film seems finally to be engaging its complex theme, we are deflected into the mundane world of action cinema filled with such staples as car chases, shoot outs, slow motion explosions etc. This is an insult both to the profundity of the story and the sensibilities of the audience.
So will `The Body' ultimately offend its most devout viewers, those who may find that even suggesting such a possibility as the film posits qualifies as blasphemy of the highest order? I really can't speak for them. All I know is that, as a spiritually dispassionate moviegoer who appreciates a provocative theme when it comes along, `The Body,' thanks to its overall muffing of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - for what filmmaker is ever going to want to tackle this subject again? - offends me for a great many other reasons.
