Rampage Magazine April 2022

6

The Rampage

Movie Reviews

10 Unconventional Films about Faith by Warren Lester Communication • 2023

for Easter

T here have been many films made about Christianity, faith, and spirituality over the years, and it is likely that you have seen many of them. From award winning films like The Passion of the Christ , to classics like The Ten Commandments , all the way to films of debatable quality such as God’s Not Dead , these films have tackled the mainstream with their obvious and usually uncontroversial portrayal of religion, faith, and Christianity. This article is not about those kinds of films. Not every film here will be obscure, but each film chosen for this list would not be one most people would think of when presented with the term “Christian film.” Some of these offer faith in the background, not obvious to every viewer, but there for all if you look a little closer. Some of these are controversial, and some may even be too much for the general viewer. However, what they all share in common is themes of Christianity, faith, and ultimately love. Bad Lieutenant I decided to start this list with the film that is the hardest to recommend, Bad Lieutenant . It’s not an easy film to watch at all. It’s grim, gritty, sometimes cruel, often violent, and it’s even got an NC-17 rating to boot. If you can’t deal with heavy topics, I can’t in good faith recommend this movie to you. That being said, don’t let the name, reputation or rating of this film fool you in any way. Bad Lieutenant is a deeply spiritual film. Although it’s dealings are mostly Catholic (a branch of Christianity I don’t personally align with) the message here is universal. This is a film that follows a bad man, the titular Lieutenant, who is never given a name and who is a broken and corrupt person. The plot takes this corrupt person and pits him at odds against not a criminal, but his faith. Harvey Keitel delivers a show stopping performance of a man so utterly torn up inside from his own wrongdoings that he begins to seek redemption for his sins, although he, himself, believes he can’t be forgiven. It’s haunting, it’s often depressing, but it is incredibly profound. The Book of Eli Moving away to something less controversial, we have 2010’s The Book of Eli . Denzel Washington stars in this film as the leading character in the post-apocalypse who fights his way across the wasteland that America has become in order to deliver a Bible to a destination he believes God has told him to go. Although this movie at times focuses more on the action in it than the spirituality, there is never a point in the film where it strays so much from the main plot of delivering a Bible somewhere to save humanity. Although it has its bleak moments, there are also wonderfully pulled back moments such as Eli teaching a young girl how to pray and his constant devotion to studying the word and letting it influence his life.

First Reformed First Reformed is a struggle with faith, but not a traditional struggle with belief at all. Instead, what we are offered is Ethan Hawke playing the role of Pastor Ernest Toller, a priest whose struggles in life have led to lots of hardships, but no loss in love for God. Instead, his struggle comes in that of the church and his belief that it is not carrying out God’s word in the way he believes is right. This spirals after an encounter with a mentally unstable environmental activist, a new relationship with said activists’ pregnant wife, and his own declining health. Every moment of this is powerful, beautiful, and uniquely faithful. In Bruges In Bruges is a dark comedy, a thriller, and an emotional drama that may not appear to be reflective of any religion on first viewing. It’s impossible to elaborate on this without giving away massive story beats to this fantastic film, so I recommend watching it and looking for those themes yourself. I find these themes occurring regularly throughout, but especially in the ending scene. It’s a Wonderful Life Despite being by far the most well-known film on this list, the most easily accessible, and generally one of the most talked about films of all time, I rarely hear anyone discussing the incredibly overt spiritual themes in It’s a Wonderful Life . It is with good reason that this film is regarded as one of the all- time greats, as you watch and see the life of George Bailey and his incredible loving spirit. The story, of course, culminates in a narrative we all know — a man wishes he were never born, is shown what life would be like if that were the case, and realizes that his life is worth living after all. It’s simple, but effective; however, the underlying theme of love and compassion, coupled with the overuse of a guardian angel in the story, makes this one effective on a spiritual level as much as it is on an emotional level.