A Closer Walk With Thee

A curious thing about Lars Von Trier’s film “Breaking the Waves” is that its central character never appears on screen. On one level, of course, the story is driven forward by Bess, a naive girl played by Emily Watson, who makes a pact with God in a desperate attempt to save the life of her injured husband. On a deeper level, however, it is God, or at least Bess’ idea of him, who turns the narrative wheels of Von Trier’s movie.

Bille August’s new film, “Jerusalem,” for instance, has much in common with “Breaking the Waves” in this regard. The film, the true story of a group of Swedish religious pilgrims who emigrated to the Holy Land in 1896 to live closer to God, centers on people whose every action is a reaction to him.

At a glance, it would be easy to assume that this fascination with theological questions is peculiar to Scandinavian films, but in fact, it is a subject that comes up in movies nearly everywhere but America, where film history is marked by a curious reluctance to tackle the big questions.

August, however, tackles them head on in “Jerusalem,” which examines the fear, superstition and confusion of a community of simple farming people who interpret everyday occurrences as instruction from the divine, and search in vain for guidance that never seems to come.

The film, based on a 1915 novel by Selma Lagerlof, is as remarkable as “Breaking the Waves” in its evenhandedness. Neither film functions as a morality fable, nor does either attempt to prove that God exists. Rather, they operate as open-ended inquiries, and they make no bones about the fact that one can’t address the question of God without simultaneously acknowledging the brutality of human existence.

The God of “Breaking the Waves” is a harsh one indeed, and he hangs Bess out to dry even as he keeps his promise to her. In light of the film’s downbeat conclusion, it may be surprising to learn that Von Trier is a practicing Catholic who converted five years ago.

Conversely, August’s film ends on a note of optimism. So it’s equally surprising when the director says in an interview: “Although I have the deepest respect for faith regardless of what form it takes, I don’t believe in God, nor was it my intention to raise the question of whether or not he exists. The people in this story were fanatically obsessed with what they believed, and for me it’s a tale of human imperfection and disappointment.

“This Swedish cult had its roots in Chicago. A group of people there believed the Great Fire of 1871 was the first sign of the apocalypse, and one of the leaders of the group went to Sweden to recruit people for their commune in the Holy Land.

“Part of what drew me to this story is my belief that such a thing could easily happen today. When societies lose their idealism, they become vulnerable to Svengalis, and I think most people would agree we’re living in a time of profound disillusionment. The book was intended as a cautionary tale by its author, Selma Lagerlof, who was a close friend of Ingmar Bergman’s father, who was a Lutheran minister. The book has always been important to Ingmar Bergman, whose films obviously are concerned with questions of faith.”

The route is indeed fairly direct from “Jerusalem” to Bergman’s 1957 film “The Seventh Seal,” a harrowing meditation on faith in 14th century Sweden. Set against the backdrop of a plague that ravaged Sweden during that period, Bergman’s story suggests that death is the meaning of life, and that the significance attributed to all that precedes it is erased upon death’s arrival.

“To believe is like loving someone in the dark who never answers,” says a knight played by Max Von Sydow, who has come to the conclusion that man’s fate is a bitter one and attempting to understand it is futile. Closing his film with a shot of a young couple blissfully unaware of this fact, Bergman implies that ignorance is the most we can hope for.

Bergman’s 1960 film “The Devil’s Eye” was similarly bleak in its suggestion that we are born stained and weak, the trials of life strengthen us, and God torments us for his own amusement. “No punishment is too severe for those who love,” observes one of Bergman’s typically bummed-out characters midway through the film.

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Taking an even more jaundiced view of all things theological was Spanish Surrealist Luis Bun~uel, whose entire output as a filmmaker is seen by some as an attack on the Catholic Church. Outraged by the absurdity of imposing a structure of logical order on a chaotic universe he felt was clearly being run by nobody, Bun~uel made the hypocrisy of organized religion the subtext in all his work.

He attacked these sacred cows head on in his third film, made in 1932, “Land Without Bread,” and in such subsequent films as “Nazarin” (1959), “Simon of the Desert” (1965) and “The Milky Way” (1970).

The most accessible of the four, “Simon of the Desert,” reinterprets the story of the temptations of St. Simeon of Stylites, the 5th century desert anchorite who spent 37 years preaching to pilgrims from a perch atop a column. A fatuous martyr whose sacrifices are useless in their inability to change human nature, Simon frets for the souls of people who are oblivious to the divine other than when they need something, and he performs miracles his followers evaluate as if they’re judging a dance contest. One can’t help noting, however, that when Bun~uel’s saintly characters tire of goodness and lose their faith, he depicts them as no more productive and certainly no happier.

Catholicism is also central to the creative sensibilities of Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Each of them approached it differently, however.

Fellini related to the church like a naughty boy who couldn’t keep his hand out of the cookie jar but meant no real harm and trusted all would be forgiven in the end.

There’s a bit more fear in the attitude of Scorsese, who seems to view many of his characters as sinners at the mercy of forces beyond their control--but sinners nonetheless. Though Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” was attacked as blasphemous on its release in 1988, its sole deviation from the standard story was its suggestion that at one point Jesus had doubts about his own divinity and considered marrying.

Pasolini’s “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” is equally earnest; in fact, considering that Pasolini was one of the cinema’s most notorious political and sexual outlaws, the film is downright reverential.

The sophistication and courage of the work of Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski are nothing short of startling in comparison with most movies of this kind. Depicting life as a series of moral conflicts capable of producing moments of transcendence, his films couch complex philosophical questions in simple fables set among the European middle class.

His greatest work, “The Decalogue,” is a dauntingly ambitious 10-film cycle exploring the Ten Commandments and how they can be seen operating today in the lives of the tenants of a Warsaw apartment complex. These people’s experiences suggest that man is created in God’s image, and hence is responsible for behaving in a godly fashion.

Kieslowski’s films offer no promise of heavenly reward for doing the right thing, nor eternal punishment for doing wrong. He seems to believe that the pleasures and myriad hells of Earth should be sufficient motivation for all of us to behave.

The subtlety of “The Decalogue” is thrown into high relief when you compare it with Woody Allen’s attempt to do something similar in his 1989 film “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Though it’s one of Allen’s most accomplished films, it pales next to the work of Kieslowski, whose genius was rooted in his compassionate reluctance to judge.

“I don’t meet bad people,” Kieslowski said during an interview shortly before his death last year. “Yes, people behave selfishly, with cowardice and stupidity, but they do so because they find themselves in situations where they have no other option. They create traps for themselves, and there’s no escape. People don’t want to be dishonest--life forces them into it.”

Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky was every bit Kieslowski’s match in his fearlessness in tackling the big questions. His 1966 film “Andrei Rublev,” for instance, chronicles the life of the 15th century icon painter acknowledged as the first Russian artist whose works pivoted on a belief in goodness and justice. The Trinity was a theme of great controversy in the art of Rublev’s time, and the artist broke from tradition in depicting it as an indivisible entity, thereby suggesting it impossible to separate God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit. Tarkovsky involves the viewer in this rather abstruse theme without resorting to manipulative sentimentality, simply because he trusts that it’s of interest to any reasonably intelligent person.

Things are markedly different in America, where films addressing issues of theology invariably lead the viewer into a Hallmark card reality of fluffy kittens and group hugs. American movies are big on lovably mischievous angels who are intermittently invisible or have wings, and they often characterize God as a doting grandfather who gazes down on us affectionately from his throne on a white cloud.

In the 1977 hit “Oh, God!” the man in charge is played by George Burns, who temporarily takes human form to deliver a pep talk on ecology, nutrition and brotherly love. Life is basically a laugh riot with this God, who thinks we humans are doing a reasonably good job of colonizing planet Earth.

The U.S. has also turned out an abundance of biblical epics that are essentially period films in that they are more concerned with creating a convincing evocation of the past than in examining religious dogma. (Bernardo Bertolucci’s ill-conceived “Little Buddha” of 1994 falls into this camp.) No fewer than 47 actors have played Jesus Christ in movies; the bulk of them were produced in America, and the philosophical position of all of them is virtually identical.

In “Touch,” Paul Schrader’s current film about a stigmatic with healing powers, the director cops out on the difficult issues he raises and retreats into a love story with a happy ending. Disaster films unfold in a godless universe populated by quivering mortals who rely on muscle-bound superheroes to save them. (Ridiculous, yes, but as Norman Mailer once observed: “Sometimes you have to work with the talent in the room.”) Or, we get quasi-theological thrillers like “Rosemary’s Baby” or “The Exorcist,” which Pauline Kael aptly described as “the biggest recruiting poster for the Catholic Church since ‘Going My Way.’ ”

A rare exception to the rule was Michael Tolkin’s 1991 film “The Rapture.” Ostensibly the story of the conversion of a woman (played by Mimi Rogers), the film grows increasingly complex as it progresses and raises questions about the arrogance of Christians who see themselves as “chosen,” the loneliness of any path to the sacred and the savagery of life that drives us into faith.

As the film winds to a close, Rogers’ little girl grows impatient for heaven and whimpers: “Why do we have to stay here and wait around for God?” Rogers’ character responds with a series of decisions that seem to say: “Screw heaven. An eternity there is insufficient compensation for the hell man endures on Earth.”

Speaking of the film, Rogers said that “whether they agree or disagree with the politics of the film, most people who’ve seen it appreciate the fact that it deals with things that seem to have become taboo in movies.”

Hollywood movies is what we assume she’s referring to.