| The irreverent The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) provoked so many pickets that filmmakers have been reluctant to pose religious hypotheticals, or so it seemed until a similarly daring The Body was released one week after Good Friday. The hypothetical posed in The Body, from a novel of the same title by Richard Ben Sapir, is “What would happen if an archeologist found the tomb of Jesus containing his bones?” Would we then question the resurrection of the body, thus undermining the claim that Jesus was divine? It seems that a Palestinian hardware merchant (played by Makhram J. Koury) wants a basement constructed under his shop in the Arabic quarter of Jerusalem, requiring excavation. Dr. Sharon Golban (played by Olivia Williams), an Israeli archaeologist called to supervise the excavation, unexpectedly finds a tomb containing a body. Only a rich man would have such a tomb, but the body is that of a poor man who was crucified, and artifacts date the tomb to the year 32AD. Sharon asks an archaeological museum curator about her finding; he proves to be Father Lavelle (played by Derek Jacobi), a Dominican, and informs the Vatican. Cardinal Pesci (played by John Wood) in Rome then assigns Father Matt Gutierrez (played by Antonio Banderas), a former military intelligence officer now living in the United States, to make sure that the body is not declared to be that of Jesus Christ. Much of the film then dwells on a conflict involving politics, religion, and science. Upon arrival in Jerusalem, Gutierrez makes the acquaintance of Sharon, who wants the chips to fall where they may, regardless of the political or religious implications, but he patiently works to change her attitude. Gutierrez also contacts Moshe Cohen (played by John Schrapnel), an Israeli official, to convey the wishes of the Vatican that no news about the possible identity of the body should be allowed to leak out. Cohen, however, prefers to use the discovery as leverage to force the Christian world to support Israel’s claim to sovereignty over all Jerusalem. Gutierrez even runs into Orthodox Jews, who are incensed that a tomb is being desecrated by an archaeologist. Palestinian terrorists also get involved, so that they can deny Israel any advantage to be gained from the discovery. The most conflicted person, Father Lavelle, ultimately commits suicide. In the end, Palestinians kidnap Sharon’s two children, so she gives them the bones as ransom, but Israelis arrive to attack the Palestinians, and the bones are destroyed by the Israeli artillery. Gutierrez, who has been struggling to keep his faith despite apparently irrefutable evidence that the bones were those of Jesus, returns to the Vatican, resigns his priesthood, and writes a love letter to Sharon. Directed by Jonas McCord with breathtaking cinematography of the city of Jerusalem, The Body exposes the Vatican as more interested in maintaining control over the beliefs of the faithful than in objective truth, as are indeed the Israelis and the Palestinians in the film. In short, politics trumps science using religion, or perhaps religion trumps science using politics. The very limited release of the movie after Easter speaks eloquently of the fears of the distributors that picket lines might form after Easter Sunday homilies, since political and religious bigotry is what the film is all about. When the film was distributed in some European countries, the original content was considered so blasphemous that in new film footage Matt insists that the bones are those of a person known as David, not Jesus. MH |