April + May Festivities

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365 Films in 365 Days — May 1: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

This series is dedicated to matching memorable movies with the signature day each year upon which I could watch them forever. It may seem sacrilegious to debut this film before the original, but it makes the most sense thematically, and recent reevaluations of this movie and its sequels have shown that its legacy is worthy of the saga and enhances its overall appeal. May marks the month of Star Wars Day and this movie's original release, and so it must be:

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999, Lucasfilm/20th Century Fox, George Lucas)

Ep I opens with all the pomp and circumstance of a Shakespearean play. With crosswise swords and words. The strange austere nature of the Jedi's arrival to the Naboo system, sent on behalf of the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic to settle a trade dispute, is soon after ruined when the Trade Federation, who is performing a blockade of Naboo in protest of the planet's refusal to do crooked business, resolves to have them killed on the word of a hooded holographic figure with a sinister voice. This all advances past the viewer with pulpy, high adventure vibes, as the performances by Neeson and McGregor as Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi suggest they are above any of the dangers. This instills us with a confidence in our heroes, grounds the villains without making the outcome a foregone conclusion, and establishes some early stakes. The first twenty minutes of the movie play out like a solid episode of a limited series. There are three brief action scenes demonstrating the Jedi's abilities, several scene changes from ship bays to forest floors to underwater cities to decadent palace courtyards, and a daring rescue and escape that sends us into our first plot point. It's a breakneck pace, but it's primary intention is to bring all the major players together and give them reason to land on Tatooine, a core location important throughout the saga.

The use of lightsabers and Force powers is effectively impressed upon the audience during the early scenes. Still, the challenges the Jedi face as they progress are not without risk. Star Wars paints a world where competent characters must navigate their problems with courage and planning and flexibility, not with sheer power and plot armor. Despite being the heroes, they aren't immune to sudden setbacks, and they're often set with entrusting their success in the world and with those around them. The whole incident whereby the Jedi meet the outcast Jar Jar Binks and negotiate his release from his superiors spotlights the Jedi as partners in their dealings, not overlords.

Before the half hour mark arrives, our heroes resolve to land on a desert world run by gangsters to acquire parts for their damaged ship from the escape. Ultimately, their goal is to reach the capital of the Republic, Coruscant, to deliver Amidala, the Naboo Queen, so that she can appeal to the highest authorities about the Trade Federation's transgression.

Chance intervenes on Tatooine when Qui-Gon comes across the child Anakin Skywalker while shopping for parts. The boy is evidently strong in the Force—from which a Jedi draws his power—and summarily has what they need to solve their other problems: shelter from an incoming sand storm, and knowledge of a big racing event that can offer our heroes the prize money they need to deal with the local economy. But Anakin's discovery creates its own new wrinkle in the plot: he and his single parent mother are owned slaves, and so can't be emancipated easily. So much of these circumstantial needs pilot the plot and give events a seemingly arbitrary nature of a world that hides a thousand intrigues. It's the same kind of world-building and scenario design that role-playing gamers and designers dream of—bringing elements from different walks of life together on a grand scale where all play some small part in realizing the truth of their togetherness. It makes one doubt the nature of how arbitrary things are and begin to wrestle with the idea of fate and destiny. (It is a story with an intent, after all.)

Qui-Gon gambles on the boy's prowess as a racer and manages to arrange a bet to settle Anakin's release also as a slave. Naturally, the boy wins—in what is still to this day the most imaginative multi-lap race scene put on film—but must leave his mother behind as the wager was only strong enough to win Anakin's freedom. In Star Wars, there's rarely just pure risk then reward without some further sacrifice.

In short order, paths are set for Coruscant as they continue on their original quest, but the added responsibility of training Anakin as a Jedi becomes a side-quest of increasingly equal importance. For you see: Anakin had no father—the product of a virginal birth—and Qui-Gon sees prophecy in the discovery. This invokes themes both mythic and mysterious, plotting a certain course ahead in the here and now flanked by an uncertain past and future. These ideas also align greatly with Qui-Gon's earlier insistence to Obi-Wan to focus on the present.

Take heed world: being unanxious about the before and after in the midst of many doings is a great message.

And again, in the midst of all these swirling, cascading plot elements, we meet R2-D2, C-3PO and Darth Maul—all franchise characters that get their origin stories here! 

Padmé Amidala's wardrobes throughout are little fantastical takes on a variety of real-world royalty looks that give her character this kind of forbidden, forsaken princess vibe. At 14, she's not even an adult and I contend there's a delicacy behind her sterner words when she effects the "queen's voice" that is both a tell and a dodge.

What for more than an hour of the film has been a series of fetch and rescue quests gives way to political intrigues in the first part of the second half. McDiarmid's Senator Palpatine enters here, by all accounts a friendly fatherly figure who can ghost into Padmé's and Anakin's lives—both of which are conspicuously devoid of father figures—and provide them a solid rudder in navigating the glass and steel city-world that they've stepped into. It's great visual storytelling that much of the film previous to the Coruscant scenes is decked in richly lush or harsh environments that are in harmony with the natural world. Coruscant has no vestige of the natural world left to it. Lucas's work throughout the saga is replete with this kind of image messaging.

Padmé's real personality has been hiding in the background much of the film and her character turn occurs during the scene when (ironically, the outcast) Jar Jar provokes private feelings of belonging in her and she literally turns to Palpatine to announce her exit from his arena. She concludes that politics will only fail her and the best way forward is through self-determination. This, too, is analogous to Lucas's early career struggles against the "Hollywood system" and the founding of Lucasfilm and ILM. The saga may be as much autobiographical as it is set in a galaxy far, far away. I'm sure many of us, too, feel like we're living far away from reality, whether by choice or by circumstance. The symbolism goes deep.

The finale plays out across four major battle scenes: the invasion of Theed by Naboo resistance forces led by Padmé, the Gungans' led by Jar Jar in the Battle of the Grassy Plain versus half-a-million B1-series battle droids, the space assault on the Trade Federation droid control ship by Naboo N-1 starfighters assisted by Anakin, and Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's duel with Darth Maul. Nothing that is shown is wasted, and just as each character has had to overcome obstacles to this point in the story each of them is given their final exam. Even Obi-Wan—to become the most famous of Jedi—who is mostly a supporting character here, is made to step out from behind his master and graduate to the level of Jedi Knight and master all at once. In many ways, Ep I is the story of how the events the mains experience catapult them into circumstances they are not entirely ready for. Who is ready? What does it mean to be ready in life? Are we prisoners of the actions we and those around us take, or do we exercise appropriate agency in the promises we keep and break?

John William's score sets a new bar and further plants the Star Wars soundscape into our memories with this film, in particular with the track "Duel Of The Fates". Lots of poetry here. Qui-Gon's moment of calm during his fight with Maul is the perfect picture of a Jedi vs a Sith. His has probably the most earned death in a film not based on a true or historical event that I can think of. And then the lightsaber exchange between Obi-Wan and Maul after Qui-Gon falls is everything anger-fueled lightsaber duels ought to be.

In the end, the phantom menace (Palpatine), thought to have been Maul, remains undisclosed in plain sight. The unseen phantom menace (time) continues to soldier on as light begins to give way to dark. In fact, all of the Star Wars trilogies work on this routine: day into night into a new dawn.

Ep I is equal parts whimsical, poignant, adventurous, and virtuous, much like the mains in its story. I've never once watched it and felt I was wasting my time. A winning entry in the canon!

May 1 — 12 of 365 logged

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365 Films in 365 Days — April 18: The Passion of the Christ

This series is dedicated to matching memorable movies with the signature day each year upon which I could watch them forever. This next movie is so good and yet so jarring that I always swallow hard when preparing myself to watch it. It's Good Friday, so I can do none other than:

The Passion of the Christ (2004, Icon/Newmarket Films, Mel Gibson)

The opening of the Passion is rich with dark beauty and menace. The music has a dark sensuality to it, and the performances are raw and theatrical. Jim Caviezel's Christ is the modern template, and productions like The Chosen have definitely benefitted from his portrayal. It simultaneously goes to places no other actor has gone to before and sets itself apart by not inviting imitation. The whole movie plays out that way. Simultaneously setting itself apart and provoking reactions that no other film might dare to emulate. It's indicative of the life Jesus lived—wholly unique and unimpeachable by human standards.

The scene with Satan and Jesus as he asks for the cup to pass from him continues the duality of raw beauty and pure pain. It is an emotional crucifixion. The spirit must be right for the body to obey. The imagery is strong and stark and the words are sparse but unsullied. It's unsettling in its crystallized finality.

The Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin used in the film lends it such an authenticity and the filmic way in which its shot is enough to tell the story without subtitles. Truly an achievement.

It's truly heart-wrenching, too, to watch Jesus' betrayal and treatment. The "passion" here is His suffering. It's undeniable and very honestly depicted. Jesus' tumble while chained over the bridge as Judas watches on in horror is just-under-over-the-top, which sets the table for what is to come.

Judas' betrayal of Jesus is all of ours to own. We each betray God in our own ways. And the penalty for that is death. But Jesus saves us from ourselves, if we follow him to the end. Judas followed Jesus only most of the way, sadly. Being a follower simply isn't enough, if it's only with our bodies. We must die to our old selves to follow him in spirit. The film deftly evokes all of this.

The scene with Jesus and Mary at the tall, rich man's table is such a needed relief. The movie is heavy throughout, and rightfully so, but we need those little warm touches and kind remembrances to survive the ordeal. We are, too, what we remember in life.

The spoken words of Aramaic during Jesus' interrogation in Caiaphas' court has such power to it. The words they speak and the manner they deliver them in have a spellbinding power. I can't watch that scene without trembling and verging on tears. Why does this scene affect me so? Why does this story affect anyone so dramatically in this day and age? These are questions one must honestly consider.

I remember a religious studies student standing up in class in the Spring of 2004 after the movie came out. The professor—in a class on the teachings of Jesus—had elicited comments from the students as to their reactions to the film. The student who stood—a young woman—claimed she thought the film had many silly contradictions and didn't make any sense. Some others in the class laughed at this. I even recall the professor smirking at those comments. I don't think I had ever felt so much disconnect and pity for my fellow man than at that time. It's not a shock to me that the film was received so by some at that time. That was the height of the "new atheism" movement in America. A movement which has spawned nothing to remember it by, and given us no answers, no solace. A movement that will have lasted less time on earth in its heyday than Jesus spent bodily while here. That's telling.

Pilate's first encounter with Jesus in the film doesn't feel like a movie. This is when filmmaking is at its zenith: when you forget you're watching moving pictures on a screen and you're transported.

"If you cannot hear the truth, no one will tell you." This is a line in the film and a thing of absolute truth. Interesting that it comes from Pilate's wife, Claudia, who is as forgettable a named character that there is. And yet there she is, saying those words to her man in a moment of uncertainty for him. Jesus is, was, and always will be to the Son of God, God incarnate, and no amount of him claiming literally that he is God would have changed anything for the better. Evidence aside, every person must decide for themself.

The scene in Herod's court reminds me a lot of the Jabba's palace scenes in Return of the Jedi.

They chose an insurrectionist over the truth two-thousand years ago. We did it again in 2024.

The flagellation scene is repellent and wrong. It had to be. It's awful. But it also kinda purifies you by experiencing it. I've rarely felt more clarity and urgency than what these scenes spur out of my soul. We should feel uncomfortable and poised to move when we watch this. Let it purify you, I say.

Jesus' amazingly strong proclamations in the midst of such agony makes me heave and makes tears to flow every time. It's not emotional manipulation. It's pure emotional outpouring.

Simon of Cyrene's outburst during the scene when Jesus falls carrying the cross should be the reaction of all of us. Fantastic direction, staging, and performances by all here.

The scene revealing Golgotha ("The Place of the Skull") is sufficiently epic and stirring.

Caviezel's face during the Sermon on the Mount scene is full of grace.

And again, in the midst of awfulness, we're given the Last Supper scene to help sustain us. The poetry and parallelism is not lost on me.

The crucifixion itself is wonderfully presented. All the beats and moments you can imagine reading the passages from the Bible are here to see.

By the time the credits roll, you've been marked by this picture. Despite the fact that one might argue this movie is the height of fictional storytelling, I believe in the historicity of this tale and all that implies. Amen.

April 18 — 11 of 365 logged

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