The Messiah

A film set in and around Jerusalem. The narrative begins far back. The Israelites want a king and the prophet Samuel tells them what that means. There will be a king, he will raise an army, he will take taxes, and he will take your sons as soldiers. They want one anyway. The narrative jumps centuries from there. The Roman period. Palestine is occupied, the taxes heavy, the people poor. Jesus appears. From there the film follows what he does. But not in the usual way. The miracles are not shown, or are barely emphasised. The narrative looks instead at speech. Jesus talks in a field, in a boat, in a house, and people listen. His words are mostly about work, debt, land and sharing. Those around him are labourers. Fishermen, carpenters, shepherds. What the narrative is interested in is not miracle but teaching: its idea is that the event begins not as the founding of a religion but as a social proposal. The Roman administration sees it as a problem of order. The priests are unsettled too. The trial and the execution are shown and are entirely plain. There is next to no violence. There is no resurrection scene either. The narrative does not show it and leaves the matter to what remains after a death. Roberto Rossellini made this in his last years. He was making productions about history and instruction in that period and this is the end of that series. The method is evident. The camera cuts very little, the takes are long, and the playing is flat. Most of the cast are not professionals. The costume and settings are faithful to the period; there is no ornament. It was Rossellini's last feature. Pier Maria Rossi, Mita Ungaro and Carlos de Carvalho are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone curious about Rossellini's late period and historical instructional film. Who it is not for: anyone expecting emotional telling; the film is deliberately flat, the tempo very slow, and no scene is enlarged.