Hail Mary

Hmmm...I don't know if anything that I say about this movie will be relevant to anyone else. This movie has been in my consciousness for over 20 years and has influenced me in one way or another.

Trivia: It was because of the moving and sublime use of Mahler's 9th and Bach's Partita in this movie that I sought out the works of these composers and they've since become important points in my musical foundation.

At the lake the professor speaks of signals from outer space, the sound in the background is an electronic bzzt bzzt...but in the next shot we see the sound is merely the professor's magic marker as he doodles.

Mary politely nodding to instructions given by her basketball coach while piano music (J.S.Bach's wtc book1 prelude 1) swells in and out overwhelming the coach and the noise on the basketball court. She is still smiling and nodding and acting according to the earthly matters at hand even though The Voice calls to her. It is a very beautiful piece of cinema.

Mary and Joseph talking on the pier. In order to see him, Mary has to block out the blinding sun with her hand: that's the whole meaning of Mary brilliantly focused into one image.

The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe appears first as a monologue by the student guiding the rubik's cube manipulator's hand to the solution, and then later as a monologue by Mary guiding Joseph's hand.

The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe also appears in Godard's short film "Armide", his part of "Aria".

The little girl angel instructing Mary to "be pure, be tough." (I only have the Japanese DVD, so I'm paraphrasing. The original French is more flowing.) This is the first New Wave film - the first Godard film - I ever saw.

I discovered Jean-Luc Godard by reading James Monaco's "The New Wave".

I only plucked the Monaco book off the library shelf because at the time I was obsessed with "New Wave" bands like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, New Order, etc.

The lipstick circles Myriem Roussel's open mouth, the end.

Hail Mary is done in the exact same style as the only other late Godard film I've seen, First Name: Carmen, which, I believe, he did right before this one. The narrative is fractured, much more so than even his classical films such as Breathless and Pierrot le fou, and it is impossible to understand exactly what's going on. Like in many of his early films, he plays with sound effects and music. It may have been clever and interesting in Une femme est une femme, but it has grown old here.

Still, Hail Mary, like First Name: Carmen, musters enough mood to make it well worth seeing. With First Name: Carmen, I was interested at the beginning and bored by the end. Here, although the prologue is quite good, the first half of the real film bothered me, and the second half grew more interesting as it progressed. What I'm saying here is that you have to stick with it and be patient. It can be rewarding.

Also, Hail Mary seemed to me one of Godard's more visually accomplished films, probably second to Vivre sa vie. You'll see some of the most gorgeous photographs of clouds and the sun, the moon, fields, flowers, and nude women. Some of the nudes are absolutely stunning and it never felt to me pornographic (unlike First Name: Carmen). They reminded me of beautiful paintings that I have seen by the likes of Lucien Freud (I don't know if people know him, but I was particularly struck by some of his sleeping nudes; I think he is the son of Sigmund, and I know he was a companion of Francis Bacon). Other more abstract photos reminded me of Picasso. 7/10.

When this movie came out in 1985, I was in high school and quite interested in seeing it. I was raised Christian, and have always had a special interest in Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

I recently bought a copy of the film for $1 at a local video store "going out of business" sale. I thought the film might not really be as bad as I remembered it (after all I was only 15 at the time!!!) and figured for $1, what do I have to lose. The answer was perfectly clear when I watched it last night....

This movie is neither inspiring NOR blasphemous...it's just NOTHING.

A movie asking the question "What if Jesus was born today?" could be a very interesting film. But "Hail Mary" never even tried to really tell the story of "The Virgin Birth". Instead, we are bombarded with countless images of teenage Mary (played by Myriem Roussel) caressing her nubile naked body and playing with her pubic hair. At one point the camera is so close to Roussel's crotch the whole world became her gynecologist! This doesn't move the story along or even come off as "artistic nudity". It's pure shock value and nothing more.

The characters are incredibly unlikable. Mary is a cold, rude girl. Joseph is a sex crazy cab driver. The Angel Gabriel is a violent b***ard who can only be calmed by a little girl that travels with him. Juliette Binoche plays "Juliette", the high school tramp who is trying quite hard to get into Joseph's pants. Seriously, this movie is a MESS!!!

There is also a pointless subplot of a college student named Eva (played by Anne Gautier)who is having an affair with her older married professor (played by Johan Leysen). There is a very random nude scene involving these two that I still can't figure out.

Seriously, don't even bother with this film.

I think most people fail to realise that what this film really does is look at the way in which images are constructed and i think it does so very effectively and interestingly and all who doubt that are missing the point. I think the use of sound+image in the film is worthy of study and should not be dismissed as merely boring, the scenes of mary naked are not pornographic or artistic they arte framing flesh and the body not fetishized objects that we are used to seeing on screen.

Hail Mary (1985)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

I guess it goes without saying but here's yet another religious film that sparked off controversy when originally released. There were mobs of protesters at theaters across the world and even the Catholic Church tried to get it banned even though God knows they should have been dealing with other issues and not a movie. With that said, I'm really not sure what any of the fuss was about as the film never once offends God, Mary, Joseph or Jesus. In the film, Mary (Myriem Roussel) is your typical teenager who enjoys playing basketball and working at her father's gas station. Her boyfriend Joseph (Thierry Rode), a taxi driver, is getting frustrated because Mary won't let him touch her after dating for two years but his fears and jealous grow worse when Mary turns up pregnant. Godard re-telling this story in modern times is a pretty interesting touch and I think the final message from the movie is that Mary was human like any other woman and not just a cartoon character. Pretty much the said thing Martin Scorsese did with The Last Temptation of Christ in terms of Jesus being a real human and we all know the controversy that film started. As for this film, I really don't see any need for any type of controversy. Mary is seem naked throughout the movie so perhaps this is what some got upset about but I'm pretty sure the real Mary was naked at some point in her life. I think Godard handles the film fairly well even though we get several scenes of Godard being Godard with some strange edits, rambling nonsense and some scenes that amount to nothing. I'm not sure what Godard's reasons where for making this film but I think the utter strangeness really helps the film and certainly makes it stand out among other religious movies. Roussel is terrific in the role of Mary and really captures the confused teenage nature of the role. I thought she was very good in the way she handles her character's thoughts, feelings and emotions. The support cast also turns in fine work. Back to the nudity, which seems to raise a lot of controversy. Mary is often challenged with the question that is the body a part of the soul or is the soul a part of the body. I think this wondering by Mary makes good use of the nudity and that the nude actress isn't just being shown to arouse male viewers or to be anywhere near pornographic. Godard's use of classical music is another nice bonus as are some great shots of the wilderness. I've read several reviews of this film, which range from four-stars to a BOMB but I'm somewhere in the middle.