The Reckoning
Not a bad film, not great - good performance by Willem Dafoe, one of my favorites; nice period piece set in medieval times, but not in Medieval Times. Priest on the run from adultery and murder falls in with a band of traveling players, helps put on a play about a local crime, unwittingly stumbles into a nefarious set of circumstances and so on. But... lots of gratuitious slaps at the church. Wholly unnecessary to the plot, and which detract from the authenticity of the film - would people talk in such modern terms in medieval times? Of course not.
Complete authenticity is not required, of course, but gratuitious anti-Church comments that don't advance the plot are simply silly.
Two possible explanations come to mind - 1) the makers of the film are anti-Christian and so naturally think this way; adding such comments helps them express themselves or 2) the makers of the film think the comments will make the film more popular. Both might be true, or perhaps just one. Or maybe there is another explanation.
But it seems to me that no one would get away with gratuitious slaps at Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. in a movie today without a ruckus being raised.
Complete authenticity is not required, of course, but gratuitious anti-Church comments that don't advance the plot are simply silly.
Two possible explanations come to mind - 1) the makers of the film are anti-Christian and so naturally think this way; adding such comments helps them express themselves or 2) the makers of the film think the comments will make the film more popular. Both might be true, or perhaps just one. Or maybe there is another explanation.
But it seems to me that no one would get away with gratuitious slaps at Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. in a movie today without a ruckus being raised.
Posted by Andy Morriss on
Thursday December 1, 2005 at 7:57pm