A 2005 indy film, Confession, --also known as Deadly Secrets--is a riff on Hitchcock's 1953 I Confess. In both cases, a priest hears the confession of a murderer and then, unable to reveal the truth, finds himself accused of the crime. The newer film is set in a boys' school. Jonathan Meyers, like Hitchcock, ignores the fine points of canon law so as to ramp up the tension for his priest-protagonist.
Amazingly, there is only one passing reference to the clergy sex scandals; the issue here is murder, not sex. And amazingly, the priests are not cartoons; on the contrary. None of the standard lazy Hollywood cliches:
a. heartless orthodox organization men bent on political powerJust as amazingly, they are recognizable as canons regular of Premontre and the film appears to have been shot in their abbey and boys school in California.
b. the misunderstood (usually lefty) victims of the above men
c. tortured but hot semi-believers having an affair
d. doddering clueless old capons with all the testosterone of Barney the Dinosaur*
e. nutcase exorcists or apocalyptic conspiracy freaks
The accused priest who keeps the seal of the confessional is played low key by Cameron Daddo
and Chris Pine, who has since grown up to be a startlingly handsome fella, 
plays the very bad boy. Not a great flick, but ok, probably an early effort, with the kinds of gaps and oddities you might expect. But for its refusal to follow the well-worn path in these matters, kudos.*The abbot comes close to this but mostly because he is played by Tom Bosley, who has been this kind of character for ages.
PS. I just recalled a visitor I had back in my clergy days in the 80's, a man who was a screenwriter and was prepping a treatment to try to sell to television. Here was the plot: a man with AIDS, angry at the Church, goes to confession and brings with him a syringe containing his own blood. He sticks the needle through the screen and sprays the infected blood into the priest's face and eyes. A year later, the priest comes down with AIDS. He is subject to church discipline and public disgrace...and he is not able to explain what happened, because either A. it is a secret of the confessional or B. he forgot the incident!
I bet this guy is churning out drek now for the SyFy channel.
1 comment:
The Church has made poor use of her 'heartless orthodox organization men" since Pius 12 peg'd out and she became a pilgrim people -- and for what? ... If the Sufi channel is already purveying dreck, why do geniuses keep hoping for cultural renewal and greatness from Traditionalism?
er@23
Post a Comment