Aubrey Malone
Stations of theCross (G)
This very stark, very ascetic German film comprised 14 scenes which mirror the 14 stations of the cross, both visually and thematically. Each scene is named after a station.
It deals with the short life of Maria (Lea van Acken), a 14-year old girl who’s strongly influenced by a dogmatic Catholic organisation, the Society of Saint Pius X, presided over by a strict priest, Fr Weber (Florian Stetter).
Fr Weber, as we learn in the “Last Supper” style opening scene, believes “the Devil entered the Church after the Second Vatican Council”. The society doesn’t agree with the priest facing the congregation at Mass or Massgoers being permitted to touch the Communion host with their hands.
Maria also falls under the sway of her dictatorial mother (Franziska Weisz). She becomes hysterical when Maria expresses an interest in joining a school choir that plays gospel and soul music. For her, and for Fr Weber, soul music is “demonic”.
One of the reasons Maria wishes to join the choir is to be with a friend of hers from a “parallel” class, Christian (Moritz Knapp). Maria fears mentioning Christian to her mother, so she pretends he’s a girl who’s in the choir instead and she gives him the name of Rebecca.
She tells Fr Weber about her lie in confession. He then asks her if she has a physical attraction to Christian. She says she has imagined him putting his arms around her. For Fr Weber, this innocent thought is viewed as “lustful”.
Maria is exhorted to deny herself pleasures like eating cakes, drinking tea, having herself photographed (for fear of vanity) and even enjoying beautiful scenery. A pious young girl, she’s made to feel impure due to the fanatical prejudices of those around her.
She begins to deny herself food and becomes frail and weak, so weak that she faints at her Confirmation. She considers the idea of sacrificing her life to God, a subsidiary motive being to “save” that of her silent younger brother or at least to induce him to speak.
The film is an indictment of fundamentalism but director Dietrich Bruggerman doesn’t make such an indictment strident, preferring to let the story unfold in its own way. Its power is increased by the fact that the camera doesn’t move at all, except very briefly towards the end. This gives the effect of making viewers feel they’re “doing” the stations. (The demand such a device places on the cast is high as it means they have to remember up to ten minutes of dialogue at a time.)
The performances are excellent but the character of Maria’s father doesn’t come across as real. He’s so taciturn as to be almost invisible. There’s a moment towards the end where he seems to be seeing through his wife but one can’t be sure.
There’s very little humour in the film apart from a gym scene where Maria refuses to move to the “satanic” music her teacher has chosen. When it’s turned off, the rest of the class rebel.
I’m sure people will be talking about Stations of the Cross for a long time to come.
It goes to the heart of the Christian message of love and self-sacrifice but also undercuts it by suggesting that Maria’s anorexic behaviour is tantamount to a kind of suicide endorsed by the extremism of her cold-hearted mother.
