August 20, 2014
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ENTERTAINMENT
‘Calvary’ grasps for a World beyond Fairness
tant wife seems bent on communi
cating that she is a lost cause, and
erally onto them, but doesn't over even says so at one point, but Fa
react. A local atheist doctor who ther James corrects her. And to the
has seen too much of the dark side male prostitute who assumes a manu
of humanity brazenly snorts cocaine factured accent and a flamboyant,
around the priest and tries to pro nearly assaultive bravado, Father
voke him with a story of a botched James finally asks, without irony,
operation that left a young child "Are you all right?"
blind, deaf, and paralyzed. A finan
He has integrity. Perhaps the
cier keeps turning up and cynically hardest person for Father James to
offering the church money to as tolerate is his co-pastor, a facile
suage guilt he doesn't even feel for priest who preens and judges and
his sins, and keeps emphasizing utters not a single word of authentic
how much his possessions cost and truth in the entire film. Fiona ob
how little they mean to him. Father serves wryly that the co-pastor is
James also visits a vile serial killer in "the future of the priesthood," and
prison who taunts him with the rev one might fear that is the case,
elation that he felt like God as he though history does not lack for
took the lives of his victims. Father similar examples, and not just in
James sees the hostility and dishon Catholicism. At one point Father
esty of these men for what it is, and James cries out in exasperation,
sometimes responds with appropri "Why are you a priest?" The ques
ate revulsion. Often he will ask a tion wounds the co-pastor, who later
person, "Why am I here?" when it is remarks that he didn't realize Father
clear that he is being toyed with. But James hated him that much. Father
generally he manages to keep open a James, who has spent the past week
space to respond in genuine love if with a murderer and a thief and a
ever the person comes around to prostitute and two adulterers, re
being able to accept it.
sponds, "I don't hate you at all. It's
His actions communicate his be ju st that you have no integrity.
lief that no one is a lost cause. Not That's the worst thing I could say
the doctor, despite his taunts. Nor about anybody."
the financier, even after he pisses
Indeed. And though by this
on a painting to. prove the already point Father Jam es' own flaws are
obvious point that nothing means m ore evident, it is clear that he
anything to him. Nor the serial killer, does have integrity. He is engaged
who Father James continues to visit in a struggle for truth, including a
even while aware enough of the struggle for the truth in him self,
man's history to know when the man right until the end of the film and
is manipulating him. The unrepen even in his m om ents of fear when
c o n t i n u e d f r o m page 11
his life hangs in the balance.
This film deals with the ques
tion o f faith in a challenging way,
which also involves dealing with
the question o f fairness. Father
Jam es is an innocent man facing a
threat o f death that is wholly un
justified. The question o f the un
fairness o f life hangs over nearly
every scene o f the film. Much of
what troubles these characters is
life's unfairness - the doctor who
has seen a patient killed by a drunk
driver and a child's life ruined by
an anesthesiologist's error; the
sex abuse victim for whom there
w ill be no justice; the prostitute
who has spent his life as a play
thing; Fiona, who has struggled
with experiences o f abandonment.
The film places an answer to these
questions in the mouth o f a young
Frenchwoman whose husband is
killed by that drunk driver. Father
James comes to perform the last
rites, and learns that the couple loved
each other very much and had a
good life together. He tells her that
performing the last rites is never
easy but that some cases certainly
seem less unfair than hers. When a
person dies so young, people often
lose their faith, he says.
That isn't much faith to lose, she
remarks. And he allows that for most
people, faith amounts merely to fear
of death, which is easy to lose. The
woman remarks that what happened
to her is not "unfair; it is just what
happened." "She notes that some
people don't live good lives, and
never experience love. "That is un
fair," she says.
Having just lost someone under
circumstances even more unfair than
an accident caused by a drunk
driver, I struggle with the woman's
statement. But perhaps that struggle
has integrity. Late in the film she and
Father James encounter one another
again and, deep in her grief, she
remarks, "At times I think I cannot
go on. But I will go on." In the view
of this film, and in my own view,
that's faith.
Darleen Ortega is a judge on the
Oregon Court o f Appeals and the
first woman o f color to serve in that
capacity. Her movie review column
Opinionated Judge appears regu
larly in The Portland Observer. You
can f i n d h e r m o vie b lo g a t
opinionatedjudge.blogspot.com.
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