Someone once said, atheists make the best religious films, and there may be some truth to that. The problem with most religious films made by the faithful is that they are either church-lady style “fast track” to heaven films where the filmmaker lionizes some religious figure, totally whitewashing any possible misdeeds and creates a boring, one dimensional, 3 hour sermon on celluloid. Or, they create a film made to appeal to a religious market with all the edicts of that market – anything controversial avoided (safe for the kiddies) – and/or based on religious tenets that make no sense to outsiders.
Here are a couple religious films that I think do a good job.
The Jesus of Montreal
A group of actors put on a Passion Play in Montreal. But not being religious himself, the director relies on historical sources and archaeological data for his script. The play grows enormously in popularity, but also angers church and city officials. Ultimately, through his play and through his life, he does a better job of representing Christ’s teachings that the hypocritical powers-that-be.
The Message
This film about the birth of Islam is a grand epic in the vein of The Ten Commandments. It was made in accordance with Islamic law, so Mohammad is never shown – but the filmmakers do a very good job of telling the story without showing the prophet.
Anthony Quinn does a great job as Hamza, one of the leaders of the new sect. It also features some of the best large-scale desert battle scenes since Lawrence of Arabia.
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