Don't listen to the negative reviews

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Do you feel like shaking up your philosophical and/or religious foundation in this spring of 2018? If so, this film by Denys Arcand is for you.A great movie for Easter, "Jesus de Montreal" tells the story of a young, idealistic actor in Montreal who sets up - with the help of his talented troupe - a "Passion Play" for the local Catholic bishop in the heart of Mount Royal. And the production goes way beyond what society and clergy expect.Lothaire Bluteau and Catherine Wilkenning give their hearts and souls to their roles of Daniel / Jesus of Montreal and Mireille / Mary Magdalene. And the rest of the ensemble - Remy Girard, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Gilles Pelletier and Robert Lepage - add equal measures to the beauty and production of the story.1990 Genie Award for Best Motion Picture.

A young actor is commissioned to update an annual Montreal Passion Play (starring himself) but is a little too convincing in his role, drawing unfriendly criticism from the Catholic Church and finally suffering his own crucifixion (and state-of-the-art resurrection). Director Denys Arcand wants to demystify the Gospels (the performance of the Play itself might have been called 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Jesus But Were Afraid To Ask'), but his film works better as a media satire than as a modern-day theology lesson. Lothaire Bluteau's (rarely changing) hang-dog beatific calm makes the title character more of a martyr than Christ ever was (his death throes in the Montreal subway are interminable), although it's never clear if the mysterious actor simply identifies with his role or is in fact the actual Man from Galilee. But even at its most pretentious the film is engagingly playful; Arcand may be wearing his intellect on his sleeve, but his Messiah isn't too far removed from Jeffrey Hunter in 'King of Kings'.

Okay, at the outset I must point out that some who watch this film might be offended. The passion play that is portrayed in the film contains quite a bit of non-Biblical material that tends to humanize Jesus and de-emphasize his divinity. A literal interpretation of the life and death of Christ, this is not! Also, Catholic hierarchy are deliberately compared to the Pharisees who persecuted Jesus and some Catholics might feel very uncomfortable with this. In addition, in parts of the play, Jesus is played naked. At first, this shocked me, but this was much more accurate than the usual loincloth portrayal of him--shocking, but not sacrilegious to me. So parents might want to think twice about letting the kids see this, or at least the would want to discuss the film with them.The film started relatively slowly, so I recommend you suspend your judgment until you've seen it all. A relatively unknown actor is asked by a hypocritical priest to re-write and perform the passion play at a shrine in Montreal, Canada. The play is quite a departure from the norm, as some of the actors are clearly not the "nice" sort of folks you'd expect to be doing religious plays. For example, one does voice dubbing for pornographic films and another does crappy ads that rely on her body more than her acting skills (a 20th century variation on followers like Mary Magdalene and other sinners--this was clever). These choices actually made sense as did many of the occurrences in the film because they were meant to be symbolic of the life of Christ. The characters themselves didn't realize this, but throughout the film they mirror the story from the Gospels. After a while, the actor who plays Jesus begins to lose himself in the role--acting out scenes such as chasing the money-lenders out of the temple and the actual death and resurrection of Christ. All the parallels are too many to repeat here, but someone with a decent knowledge of the life of Jesus will often notice the parallels.In many ways, the final results can be both affirming to believers yet frustrating as well. Frustration at some of the offensive lines of dialog and the way they've made the life of Christ rather revisionistic (saying that salvation is an individual thing--de-emphasizing Christ's part in this and making it more "touchy-feely"). But the script is so very clever and manages to also make Jesus come alive, in a sense, as the central messages are proclaimed well. Plus, after the death of Jesus in the film, it does a good job of showing how the message and legacy continues. Overall, an excellent and compelling film that is sure to make an impact on the viewer.By the way, this film was released on DVD by Koch-Lorber. While this company has a great track record for bringing independent and foreign films to DVDs, they also usually lack any sort of meaningful bonus materials. For the feature film, I give it an A. For the extras, I give them a D-.PS--Like the great BARBARIAN INVASIONS (also by the same director and starring some of the same cast), this film was highly critical of the Canadian health care system--showing it was being uncaring and overwhelmed. These two films make an interesting counter-point to Michael Moore's SICKO, which tends to glorify this same system!

I respectfully suggest to the people who find this film sacrilegious, that you have missed the point. The Daniel character lived according to Jesus' teachings, and was persecuted for it, just as Jesus had been. Both men were persecuted by the establishment who were threatened by his teachings because they could not live to such holy standards. The standards themselves were exalted in the film. This was shown in many ways, one of which was how the lives of all the members of the troupe improved once they joined Daniel in doing the Play (of course analogous to Jesus' disciples.)The complaint that the films smears the priesthood by having the priest in the film be in a sexual relationship with a woman acting in the Passion Play -- that complaint seems awfully quaint now, after the huge real-life sexual abuse scandal involving so many priests. At least the priest in this movie was having a consensual relationship with an adult.Yes, the clergy were depicted as sinful and corrupt, as were the businesspeople (think of the people making the TV commercial, to give just one example). The clergy were not singled out. It was PEOPLE IN POWER, across the board. Their power meant more to them than living by the right principles. They wanted to give the APPEARANCE of living right in order to hold on to their power, but not actually LIVE according to those principles. True of most people today. Really a great film which to me says, the way to glorify Jesus is to live for what he stood for, not just keep up appearances.