The Gospel According to Mary, film review with Benedetta Porcaroli and Alessandro Gassman

But as angels of the home, women must and can be something else. They can place themselves at the head of social unrest, become the starting line of an anarchist campaign, and a megaphone for social injustices and condemnations. And the, The Gospel According to Mary to Paolo Zucca. The mother par excellence, the obedient Virgin Mary, is stripped of her sanctity to demonstrate an immanent power to women who are unable to accept a choice that was not made independently, but rather imposed on them.

Following the path taken by a work that was as ahead of its time – and now as profoundly contemporary – as the writer’s novel of the same name Barbara Alberti, The Gospel According to Mary It becomes a reflective mirror of a present still affected by gender inequality, by feminist struggles, and by the violence and injustice that she experiences as a woman: the same that Barbara Alberti experienced in 1979 when she published her novel. The same people that Maria lived in Palestine are transformed here into a living, authentic, timeless and eternal Sardinia.

The Gospel of Mary: Two incompatible plans

Maria is not a special little girl: she was born in Nazareth, and everything is forbidden to her, even learning to read and write. But she longs for knowledge, and only then will she be able to feel true freedom. Away from the books, in the synagogue she absorbs every word to absorb and repeat it, making it her own. From the boldness of the prophets, he learned disobedience, and dreamed of escaping on a donkey and discovering the world, going far away, perhaps to Egypt. Then one day he met the kind Giuseppe, and found in him not only a mentor but also the perfect vehicle to realize his aspirations.

Their marriage is actually chaste, a simple cover that allows the man to secretly guide the young woman, thus preparing her to escape. But here’s an unexpected hitch: Mary and Joseph fall in love. They are about to give themselves over to passion, when the Angel of Annunciation spoils everything. God’s plan and Mary’s plan do not coincide at all. And so, once again, social ambition and feminine resourcefulness collide, rebel, and fight with and against each other.

The sanctity of visual art

In the secularism of our country, the scriptures have embedded themselves among the deep roots of collective identity that have influenced, shaped, and sometimes even distorted their own vision of reality. They are moments, events, that become images from the pages. Paolo Zucca is not a missionary, nor does he intend to be: with him The Gospel According to Mary Rather, the director becomes an observer who scrutinizes the surrounding reality, ignoring the expectations of linguistic narrative, in order to undermine its decorations and thus reveal the rot of its foundational structure. The Gospel of Mary, written in pictures, reserves Christian reference only for the names of the characters, the major events of their lives, and those pictorial tributes that have forever marked their lives in a gallery of stories that have entered our collective memory.

They are no longer saints, but imperfect people

It’s an exhibition Live paintings Which flows in front of the spectator. A cinematic story that captures iconic moments printed on canvas to tell, educate and stimulate the mind even for those who can’t read, but know how to admire with their own eyes. Titian, Veronese, Raphael: their brush glides across the screen again: their two-dimensional creatures once again color an ancient world of religious origin to talk about The current situation is still tied to the roots of ancient thought. In the color vibrancy of the clothing, and in the arrangement of the figures in the scene, each element recalls a Renaissance-style pictorial tradition, now devoid of religious character because it has acquired a social and cultural warning that is easily recognizable and recognizable to a contemporary audience.

In this paradox, the main figures of the Christian faith They lose their sanctity, to reveal themselves in their false humanityin a manner not unlike that performed by him Martin Scorsese In his book The Last Temptation of Christ; Even closer to the earthly and sinful nature of their spectators, it is now, the agents of taken-away and dismantled behaviors – and therefore entirely new and unknown compared to those traditionally handed down – who condemn both the subservient role of women and their devalued regard. For her, whether by the men of our time or by the patriarchy of 2024.

The sin of not knowing

“The real sin is ignorance”“says Maria D Benedetta PorcaroliAnd never, as in the image society, what becomes a transmitter of knowledge, a collector of concepts and wisdom, is that ever-luminous screen that illuminates our eyes, enchants us, adapts us, sometimes manipulates us, and sometimes teaches us. Cinema is no longer only a carrier of the surrounding reality, but also of the internal reality, and a product The Gospel According to Mary He seeks to tiptoe to remove this veil that makes us short-sighted and oblivious to the reality of others. By opening the eyes of some spectators, so as to make them less ignorant (as they are aware) of the condition of women today, Zucca entrusts his young translator with the task of Mary’s vision is far from the silent and obedient character described in the Bible (Somewhat similar to what Susanna Nicchiarelli did previously with Chiara), because she is rebellious and curious and is attracted by the thirst for knowledge and the art of learning that society denies her.

Submission framework

A provocative rereading that will spark debate and horror for many, the purest and purest of Christian stories is transformed into an essay about the female character demanding her independence and right to choose: to choose a body for herself. Choose a man who loves him. Choosing adventures to have, choosing to learn, and not living in ignorance. These are the choices that are still denied to many women today, and which Zucca’s film emphasizes through cinematic highlighters, made of… Long shots, gathering and uniting in an instant, a glimpse, of Maryam and that world that does not resemble hersHe does not understand and refuses. They are angular shots, outside the bubble, full of other, deeper, implicit meanings. Thus the shots, strongly tilted downward and upward, crushing Maryam against the weight of her submissive female sex, indicate the prevailing position of the man who dominates the woman, and views her from the heights of his own privilege. Your sentence is now ready to be created He is only expelled by the force of the cinematic gaze And visual reproduction, which is able to insert itself deep into the eye, and reach the cerebral hemisphere ready to interpret, absorb, understand and assimilate it. in The Gospel According to Mary In fact, we need to go beyond the surface, and scrutinize the preparatory drawing hidden beneath the drops of color to understand its intrinsic meaning. There is no attempt to distort the Christian faith, but only to shake minds and awaken consciences from their slumber.

It’s a crazy build, The Gospel According to Mary. A framework that stimulates vision, stimulates reflections, and pushes us to analyze our contemporary society, between prejudices, contradictions and injustices. However, in this delicate sewing process, one stitch is skipped, leaving many holes in the stitch.Coverage like this dress is magnetic, but not ideal. The ponderous performances (particularly Benedetta Porcaroli’s) that don’t intend to hide their virtuosity, have something going for them Fellini-esque, but at the same time they suddenly slow down the spectator’s identification mechanism. A more coherent, silent and mature interpretation Alessandro Gassman In the role of Giuseppe the Wise, who, in his misanthropy, distances himself from the herd of almost complete villagers. Pasolini Which crowds the view, suffocates the viewing space, and confuses the viewer. A sin, this is what the viewer will decide whether to forgive or not, as the film’s intensity approaches Maria is a proto-feminist He narrated it here, or by sending him into the flames of a cinematic hell from which there is no escape.