Marie de Nazareth

Jean Delannoy was one of the major forces of the French "cinema de qualité " so often unfairly dismissed by the highbrows.His adaptations of Georges Simenon (Maigret tend un piège,notably) were remarkable.His heyday was the forties and the fifties.His last commendable work was probably "les amitiés particulières" (1964)and since he degenerated into mediocrity.He had seemed to call it a day in the seventies,with the occasional made-for -TV film.When he returned ,in the late eighties,,he had probably been impressed by Alain Cavalier's marvelous "Thérèse" (de Lisieux)and he tried a "Bernadette" (Soubirous) which was a critical and commercial failure.Undaunted,he carried on in the rather bigotry vein.This "Marie de Nazareth" is a turkey.Only the main actress"s desperate efforts are worth watching.Intended as "Jesus 's life seen thru Mary's eyes' it totally misses the point:to be successful,it should have focused on Mary,on her reactions,on her thoughts,on her feelings :this could have been really moving.But most of the time ,and particularly when Jesus begins to preach,he takes the lion's share ,and poor Mary is reduced to a walk-on,-and however it could have been rewarding to hear her chat with the other Mary (Magdelene).Delannoy's treatment of Jesus's life does not help:no spiritual dimension,nothing vibrates,it sometimes seems we are watching a parboiled cross between a poor man's Zefirelli's "Jesus of Nazareth" and an old Sunday school book.

Delannoy,now about 97, made good movies which deserves to be remembered.But frankly,sport,this movie was just his rehearsals for retirement.

It is a beautiful film and this can be its basic virtue. The basic sin - the rush , who gives to some moments a very bizarre sense ( the baptism of the Savior is the main example ).

But the problem remains the ambiguity of purpose of director . Is it a film about Mother of God ? Is it a film about Her Son ? The - guess ! - of Juda , what is its purpose ?

The answer seems be ignored and, in strange way, the beautiful scenes are out of the Gospel - the women and Mary near fountain, the reactions of women front to institution of Eucharisty.

The aesthetic virtues are, in too much measure the only matters element. It is not a bad option but , maybe, a short version of the film about Jesus in vision of Franco Zeffirelli is not exactly enough. The excuse - it represents the last will of an admirable director, a testimony of his faith, maybe and, after so many films of theme, it can be only a shackle from a long chain.

1st watched 10/18/2002 - 5 out of 10(Dir-Jean Delannoy): Ok, but not mesmerizing depiction of the discipleship of Mary (the mother of Jesus) to Jesus, himself. This movie is one of the first attempts I've seen of depicting Mary's faithfulness to God from Jesus's conception to his ascension to heaven. This is a noble effort and Mary's portrayal is done well, but the rest of the movie doesn't seem to live up to what it could. Many parts of Jesus's life are cut out and some things are changed slightly to make them more bearable to the audience. The weird thing is that some scenes were almost word-for-word depiction's of the Bible and other's were twisted slightly. Besides this, the movie itself lacked emotion and heart about Jesus and the representation by the actor also lacked thereof. Again, a noble attempt to display Mary's point of view, but it was not executed very well, in my opinion.

A quite enjoyable story about virgin Mary's take on the evangelists, it does not really concentrate on the emotional development of Mary or on how she really reacted and lived through all of the events, but rather understands the limits of time for any movie, and gives a visually compelling story about what else was going on around Jesus - all the rest of the story has been reduced to a few semiotic remarks and dialogues, while the mother is made to have opinions of her own, and somewhat even conflicting with that of the newborn god-son. It is still a movie about Jesus & co, but as the rest of the acting is based on the bible and is for most part known to viewers, the eventful parts of the movie will become visuals and reactions and actions of the mother who is present. It kind-of shows the mothers being in the world while at the same time the rest becomes just scenery. That's what can be done with a story that is constantly retold. Enjoyable, do watch this.

Referto: Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. (just for the hell of it) maybe for similar kicks.

The story was choppy but this is understood because of time constraints and to keep it moving. The emotion seemed to be misplaced--none when needed, too much at other times. The acting was a bit stiff. Had the feel of a stage play. Christ seemed to stare into infinity a bit much and some of the others speech overs reminded me of a Japanese monster movie (Paul especially). As with most movies with a female protagonist there is the occasional male bashing and I'm sorry but was Mary nearby,in the room or around the corner of every major event in Christ's life? Maybe I'm just spoiled by "The Greatest Story Ever Told" version. ..... .....