Jésus de Montréal
Tags: comedy

Plot synopsis:
In Montreal, an unknown actor named Daniel is hired by a Roman Catholic site of pilgrimage ("le sanctuaire") to present a Passion play in its gardens. The priest, Father Leclerc, requests Daniel "modernize" the classic play the church has been using, which he considers dated. Despite working with material others consider to be cliché, Daniel is inspired and sets out on intensive academic research, consulting archaeology to check the historicity of Jesus and drawing on alleged information on Jesus in the Talmud, using the Talmud name Yeshua Ben Pantera for Jesus, whom he portrays. He also includes arguments that the biological father of Jesus was a Roman soldier, who left Palestine shortly after impregnating the unwed Mary. Daniel assembles his cast, discovered from low-profile and undesirable employment, and moves in with two, Constance and Mireille.
When the play is performed, it receives rave reviews from critics, but is regarded as unconventional and controversial by Father Leclerc, who angrily distances himself from Daniel. Daniel's life is further complicated when he attends one of Mireille's auditions. Mireille is told to remove her top, causing an outburst from Daniel in which he damages lights and cameras. He begins to face charges for property damage. As the higher authorities of the Roman Catholic Church continue to strongly object to his Biblical interpretation, security forcefully stops a performance. The audience and actors object to the stoppage and Daniel is injured in an ensuing accident.
Daniel is first taken by ambulance to a Catholic hospital. He is completely neglected there and leaves. He then collapses on a Montreal Metro platform. The same ambulance takes him to the Jewish General Hospital. Despite immediate, skilled, and energetic efforts by the doctors and nurses to revive him, Daniel is pronounced brain-dead. Daniel's doctor asks for the consent of his friends to take Daniel's organs for donation, since Daniel has no known relatives. Daniel's physician states that the staff would have been able to save him, if he had been brought to them half an hour earlier. In the wake of his death, his friends start a new theatre company to carry on his work.

Review: With actual events, people, words and thoughts from Jesus' life being transposed to our modern times.
Daniel Coulombe is recruited by Father LeClerc to jazz up the traditional Passion play (a dramatic representation of the events leading to the passion and Crucifixion of Jesus) staged in Montreal's Catholic Sanctuary.
Together, they workshop a controversial and moving Passion play which leaves audiences awestruck and the priests reeling, as the production challenges the dogma and hipocrisy of the Catholic church.Director Denys Arcand weaves a remarkably deep tale which comments on commercialism, selling out, spirituality, theological scholarship, fidelity, loyalty and more- but in a manner that is relatively subtle and humorous, so the film never feels didactic.
The story itself is well constructed, and its somber denouement drives home the suggestion that resistance and a revolutionary viewpoint are liable to bring ill fortune...You don't have to be Catholic- or even 'religious' - to enjoy "Jesus Of Montreal": this is a film for anyone who has ever contemplated the difference between spirituality and religion, or who has had to make a decision between doing what the system demanded and doing what they believe is the honest thing to do..
This film has meant so much to me over the years, with its simple, powerful messages of artistic freedom, personal redemption, perseverance during a personal quest...and how heartbreaking the world, and reality, can be.The male lead has a beautiful Zen-like quality about him during this film...meaning the character as well as the actor.
"Jesus of Montreal" is a beautiful film about the real meaning of spirituality.
Pitted against the inflexibility of religious institutions, Daniel (played wonderfully by Lothaire Bluteau) shows his rag-tag disciples the real meaning behind the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
Director Denys Arcand subtly begins to blend the story of the biblical Jesus with the day-to-day lives of a group of actors performing in a play about the last days of Jesus.
But this film is not about the traditional Christian concept of Jesus; rather, it illustrates only the human aspects of the man who is, to me, God incarnate.
As I got angrier and angrier at what was going on in the film, a sudden chill went down my back as I realized I was thinking just like the Catholic church sponsors in the movie, AND just like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' time.
Denys Arcand(The Decline of the American Empire,1986; Love and Human Remains,1993), a founder of Canada's National Film Board, creates a contemporary passion play in the metropolitan streets of Montreal.
Jesus de Montreal is successful on many levels, from biblical parallels to Christ's own legendary life to the challenging views on religion adopted by many people today.
A priest in a large Catholic church in Montreal thinks the church's annual passion play is getting stale and needs updating.
The actors indeed come up with a play that has the play's audience moving from location to location for the performance of each station.The passion play performed in this movie gave me a better appreciation and understanding of the power and significance of the Jesus myth than anything I have ever read or seen.
Director/writer Denys Arcand is clever in the way he presents the parallels.Daniel is tempted by a publicist who tells him he can make him rich and famous and details some of the techniques.
The movie is filled with such pointed commentary.In passing Arcand touches on the deficiencies of the Canadian health care system (an emergency patient is told to take number forty-eight and wait in line), a topic that he would expand on in "The Barbarian Invasions." As a subtle commentary in the context of the story, Saint Mark's Hospital is seen as hopelessly chaotic whereas the Jewish hospital is shown as professional and efficient.As Daniel and his troupe of actors take on more and more of a modern day version of Jesus and his disciples the question arises as to what the reaction would be to Jesus in our modern society.
As in other Arcand films he uses music by Francois Dompierre mixed with some classical compositions (in this case Pergolesi) to great effect.I came to this movie after having seen and enjoyed Arcand's "The Decline of the American Empire" and "The Barbarian Invasions." After now having seen "Jesus of Montreal," I think I can say I am an Arcand fan.This is a clever, humorous, satiric, and absorbing film..
You do not need to be Catholic or, much less, Quebecois to understand and appreciate this work of art.Jesus of Montreal is an act of sublime spiritual discovery and should be required viewing of all who call themselves Christian.
In this film, we see how the Spirit of Christ is born and grows in one man (Lothaire Bluteau), and how the evildoers around him react.We see the evil pharisees who judge and condemn Lothaire (Jesus).
These are the people like the American President bush who proclaim loudly to one and all how "holy" and "Christian" they are, all the while killing babies with his bombs and bullets and sanctions.Go see this film with an open mind, and you will see and hear the real message of Jesus Christ!.
Jesus of Montreal is an engaging movie detailing some historical facts about the life of Jesus Christ while also discussing the nature of faith in 20th century Montreal.Every year a Passion Play, detailing the final days of Jesus Christ, is staged at St.Joseph's Oratory, a cathedral and shrine on Mount Royal in Montreal, Canada.
The priest in charge of the play, Father LeClerc (Gilles Pelletier), finds Daniel, a young actor (Lothaire Bluteau), to play the part of Jesus and puts him in charge of finding a cast to play the other roles.
Daniel gathers together some of his acting friends to stage the play, and decides to present an update of the play with revised dialogue and incorporating much more historical information about life in the time of Christ.Daniel starts the movie as a cosmopolitan young man, but as the film progresses, the challenges he faces in his life and in the staging of the play provide parallels to the life of Christ.The movie discusses some deep themes of faith, the life of Christ, existentialism, the waning role of religion in French-Canadian society, and the good and bad of the entertainment industry.
In fact, Jesus OF MONTREAL was expected to emerge victorious at that year's Academy Awards as the Best Foreign Language Film: facing stiff competition from the likes of CAMILLE CLAUDEL (1988) and CINEMA PARADISO (1989), the honor was eventually bestowed on the latter - a nostalgia piece with child interest, it was an altogether safer bet (though I've yet to catch the film in its entirety myself!)...Despite their over-familiarity, the 'Passion Play' sequences are quite powerful - thanks also to excellent performances all around.
Lothaire Bluteau is quietly impressive in the demanding central role (of an actor who eventually goes mad from playing Christ!); incidentally, he followed this with another spiritual film - BLACK ROBE (1991).
This film tells the story of Jesus the man; allowing him to live in history without the burden of deification.
The cowardice of the priest in the film is an allegory for the intentional self-blinding of the Church itself when it comes to the topic of the deification of Jesus.
Acting doesn't pay much these days, and a team of very good, yet impoverished actors has to work for the church in a show re-creating the life of Jesus.
Daniel Coulombe (Lothaire Bluteau) is asked to modernize a passion play written 35 years ago.
Jesus of Montreal is a play within a movie; in this case The Passion Play.
One of the is that a Roman soldier was Jesus' real father and left right after the Savior's birth; ouch.Daniel, the actor playing Jesus, has an accident and is taken to a Catholic hospital and he is ignored.
The film is an allegory on the life of Christ, using Daniel, as a parallel figure.
A group of young actors put on an updated, radical version of the passion play, and find new meanings in their lives, spiritual and otherwise along the way.At the same time, they battling the hypocrisy of the Church that asked them to 'freshen up' the text, but are unprepared for a questioning, complex work of art.
Denys Arcand "Jesus of Montreal-1989" is a movie from a director with intelligence & refined sensibilities.
He also made The Barbarian Invasions a film which I enjoyed very much It won best foreign film Oscar 2004) Plot: A group of actors putting on an interpretive Passion Play in Montreal begin to experience a meshing of their characters & their private lives as the production takes form against the growing opposition of the Catholic church.
In a sense, "Jesus of Montreal" is a movie about the theater, not about religion.
This is a very impressive film, partly because of the powerful performance by Lothaire Bluteau, who combines authority and vulnerability in his portrayal of both Daniel and Jesus, but also because of the original way the film creatively reworks the story of Jesus, and especially his passion.
There is a lot to think about and it is a film to watch more than once, I think.There are just one or two wonky features: the equation of the established church with the pharisees is a bit clichéd and simplistic, and the stuff about new archaeological discoveries and Jesus being the son of a Roman soldier is a load of piffle, but I suppose the writer wanted a dramatic excuse for the changes in the script of the traditional passion play.All in all, it's excellent and I heartily recommend it..
If so, this film by Denys Arcand is for you.A great movie for Easter, "Jesus de Montreal" tells the story of a young, idealistic actor in Montreal who sets up - with the help of his talented troupe - a "Passion Play" for the local Catholic bishop in the heart of Mount Royal.
And the production goes way beyond what society and clergy expect.Lothaire Bluteau and Catherine Wilkenning give their hearts and souls to their roles of Daniel / Jesus of Montreal and Mireille / Mary Magdalene.
Asked to helm a stage play about the life of Jesus Christ that would appeal to modern audiences, a Montreal stage actor sparks controversy when his play proves a success due to its blasphemous nature in this Canadian drama.
That said, 'Jesus of Montreal' is encapsulating at its best as the protagonist becomes more and more like Christ while rehearsing (and playing) the role and as the Church figures start to show their real colours with their sponsoring of his show; "not everyone can afford psychoanalysis, so they come here" bluntly states one such official at a pivotal point.
A group of actors put on an unorthodox, but acclaimed Passion Play which incites the opposition of the Catholic Church while the actors' lives themselves begin to mirror the Passion itself.I imagine what makes this movie so appreciated is its parallels between the Bible stories and the lives of the actors.
The choice is up to you.Director Denys Arcand has really done everything he could to bring back Jesus to a mere historic figure, social worker, son of two humans, instead of the Son of God the Holy Spirit and Mary, Who opened Heaven again for us.
The film depicts a theologian bringing some "modern findings" to the actor who plays Jesus in the Passion Play, who happily incorporates them in his play.The depicted priest who runs the sanctuary where the Passion Play is performed in Montreal has a sexual relation with one of the female players of the Passion Play instead of showing his love for God through celibacy.
More often than not the director's abhorrence of the Church is clearly visible.The director has tried to make a parallel between Jesus' life and the Passion Play actor's life.
A film like "Jesus of Montreal" on the other hand, while not being as successful in terms of dollars, has reached a much broader spectrum of people.
It has played in theaters across Canada and the world, and was even nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film.
Most writings on "Jesus of Montreal" focus on it being a modernization of Christ's story.
I mention these points for a reason, because, among other things this is one of the key themes of "Jesus of Montreal".Of course, the film is about other things as well, but it is important to remark on the interesting parallel between the story that takes place in the film and Arcand's real-life situation.
In real-life of course, it is not the Church that prevents Arcand from making films, but still, the popularity doesn't help either Arcand or Daniel produce their art as often or as easily as they would like to.
Arcand's film after "Jesus", "Love and Human Remains", although in English and not up to his usual standards of quality, was by no means an escapist film, and was clearly not made to rake in easy money.Of course despite the message in "Jesus of Montreal" that trying to create meaningful art without selling out is a constant uphill battle, the film is not cynical.
As far as treatments of artist as God and manipulator of his world, this is one of the best.(And -- Arcand maintains this theme wonderfully in The Barbarian Invasions by having the same priest, also played by Pelletier 15 years later, still seeking to commercialize and monetize the art spawned by his religion.).
This was shown in many ways, one of which was how the lives of all the members of the troupe improved once they joined Daniel in doing the Play (of course analogous to Jesus' disciples.)The complaint that the films smears the priesthood by having the priest in the film be in a sexual relationship with a woman acting in the Passion Play -- that complaint seems awfully quaint now, after the huge real-life sexual abuse scandal involving so many priests.
Really a great film which to me says, the way to glorify Jesus is to live for what he stood for, not just keep up appearances..
The plot is not original: an actor is recruited by a church to play Jesus in a Passion play, and as he works himself into the part, he becomes increasingly Christ-like.
(Nicos Kazantzakis took a similar line in his novel 'Christ Recrucified.') However, its modern-day setting and iconoclastic approach mean that 'Jesus of Montreal' really does have a flavour all of its own.The church that has recruited him in the first place becomes alarmed at the radical interpretation he and his carefully-picked cast give the Passion narrative, and nervous at the hit they have on their hands.
The parallels between Christ's life and that of the young hero become closer and closer, when he destroys the equipment a set of a morally bankrupt advertising agency (a la Jesus throwing out the money-makers from the Temple.) The film is packed with humour: the lead actor is interrogated and then arrested by the local police at whilst still on the cross.So does the Resurrection happen too?
I like to think the film tells about Jesus in a modern vernacular that many people who cannot stand church or who have been hurt by church can relate to.
The passion play that is portrayed in the film contains quite a bit of non-Biblical material that tends to humanize Jesus and de-emphasize his divinity.
A relatively unknown actor is asked by a hypocritical priest to re-write and perform the passion play at a shrine in Montreal, Canada.
After a while, the actor who plays Jesus begins to lose himself in the role--acting out scenes such as chasing the money-lenders out of the temple and the actual death and resurrection of Christ.
It is about a man who is hired by the Catholic Cathedral in Montreal to put on a fresher rendition of the passion play but his ideas end up causing a lot of controversy among the priests while bringing thousands to see it.
The film itself parallels the life of Christ, even though some of the concepts in the film are incredibly controversial.Arcand questions the origins of the gospels, saying that Jesus existed through the evidence of other Roman writers, there is absolutely no doubt about that.
If this is the case then there is much more to Christ than simply relief for the poor.Jesus of Montreal is a very existentialist film, but also there an undermining of this philosophy.
We see Pilate addressing Christ as if he were a human and not God.We see another parallel in the way that the people love the play while the Church, who organises the play, hate it.
Arcand beautifully merges the play with the movie around him as the central figure attacks the priests using Christ's words.
He stands up for his friend, going as far as destroying a film studio like Christ destroys a marketplace in the temple who are ripping people off.This movie is phenomenal and it raises many questions.
Jesus of Montreal is an incredibly powerful movie, more powerful that any that I have seen of late.
The story is incredibly obvious: A group of independent actors stage a Passion Play and, in turn, they start to live out the lives of the characters they play.
A young actor is commissioned to update an annual Montreal Passion Play (starring himself) but is a little too convincing in his role, drawing unfriendly criticism from the Catholic Church and finally suffering his own crucifixion (and state-of-the-art resurrection).
Director Denys Arcand wants to demystify the Gospels (the performance of the Play itself might have been called 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Jesus But Were Afraid To Ask'), but his film works better as a media satire than as a modern-day theology lesson.