MOVIE REVIEW : The Gospel According to an Atheist

The Vatican is said to have gone a little bonkers back when word got out that Pier Paolo Pasolini--a staunch atheist--was making a movie about the life of Christ.

But Pasolini confounded the skeptics and worrywarts. “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” (1964)--being shown tonight at Saddleback College as part of its continuing series of free foreign film screenings--is one of the purest cinematic interpretations of the tale.

Even though his earlier films “Accattone!” and “Mama Roma” had centered on pimps and prostitutes, Pasolini was able to convey the spiritual glory and mystery of the Gospel--and without the reverential bathos that has saturated so many other biblical pictures.

He brought a distance to it that may have been the result of his proud Marxist leanings. In his other films, Pasolini often fixed on the hardships faced by the lower classes, and in his view Christ is the ultimate symbol of hope for those on the outside. Whether seen as God or man, Christ preached equality and love, and that’s something Pasolini never lost sight of.

He doesn’t ignore the church’s vision of Christ’s miraculous origins and powers, but he presents them in unsensational ways, which only add to the force of the narrative. When Christ cures the leper, it is a brief, almost matter-of-fact scene.

By combining humanist and celestial elements, Pasolini gives “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” resonance for believers while reaching out to the doubtful as well. The opening passage is a good example: As Mary reveals to Joseph that she is pregnant, he agonizes, wondering if his wife has been unfaithful. Mary’s own confusion also is obvious, turning the miracle into something frightening. Their predicament is a human, earthly one. Once they understand the immaculate conception, however, an otherworldly bliss settles on them.

Pasolini’s presentation of Christ is equally intriguing. Played by Enrique Irazoqui, Christ is defiantly confident, almost obnoxiously self-righteous. Gone is the meek humility we normally are shown. This Christ demands obedience and threatens a wrath that may come sooner than any hellish afterlife.

And Irazoqui--who, like most of the others in the cast, never acted before--looks like a modern incarnation of this most famous of religious icons. He could be a Brooklyn tough in a Scorsese movie.

* “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” (1964) by Pier Paolo Pasolini is being shown tonight at 7 in Room 313 of the Science/Math Building at Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Free. (714) 582-4788.