BLACK ROBE
A film review by John Schuurman
Copyright 1996 John Schuurman
Directed by Bruce Beresford Reviewed by John Schuurman
THE BLACK ROBE, a disturbingly brutal movie, marks for Australian Bruce Beresford a move from realism into the darker realm of naturalism. His movies have always been noted for their honest, matter-of-fact approach. He also has consistently dealt withmatters of ultimate value, never being shy of probing the vulnerable spots of the human condition, but this film marks for him a significant and courageous move towards something really dark, and, as I hope to show, amazingly light. In his other fine films, "Driving MissDaisy", "Tender Mercies", "Breaker Morant", and "Crimes of the Heart" to name but a few, Beresford pokes around tender spots but does so with some tenderness of his own. Here -- no more. This is a move from innocuous realism to brute naturalism.
In this film, nature is primitive and savage. Even the "beautiful" scenery in truth is foreboding and full of threat. There is no romanticizing of nature as in "Dances with Wolves" or so many American films. No wispy clouds or sunlit days. As I think back on the film, I can not recall anything other than low, grey, forbidding skies. Perhaps there was some sunshine. I doubt it.
The most stark contrast between "Dances with Wolves" and this movie is of course the portrayal of the Native Americans. "Dances" was politically correct of course but ridden with cliches and wholly dishonest to anyone who has even a passing awareness of NativeAmerican cultures. Red men were not nearly so noble nor white men nearly such blackguards. Conversely, "Black Robe" is perhaps excessive in making its point of the brutality of unredeemed natural man. But the indians, for all the barbarism are fully human. We see many moments of their tenderness and humor. Even the most savage of them areshown not to engage in cruelty for its own sake but rather for the sake of their gods. (Witness the Iroquois chiefs in the sweat lodge debating the fate of their prisoners.) For them, the way of the war club was their faith and the sacrifice of flesh a sacrament, (a profound pa rallel to that "other" faith).
The whites too were shown "warts and all". Beresford's point, "There, but for the grace of God, go I" is shown in the opening scenes in Champlain's New France. The French too are filthy and vulgar -- one can easily suppose that they would be as brutal as the indians given a different set of accidents of time and place and birth. The priest's interactions with the fur trader who gives whiskey to the natives and the rude builders are cases in point. This cultural relativism is most meaningfully shown in the dance and processional scenes near the beginning of the film. In this striking juxtaposition of cultures it seems that both are equally superstitious, equally impressed with a show, and equally silly about how the spiritual interacts with the physical.
This point is made constantly throughout the film: The delight of the indians and the revulsion of the priest as he moves his bowels over the side of the canoe; the unearthly view of "paradise" that the priest has, (no food, no tobbacco, no sexuality, only God); and thebelievability given to the whole cult of dreams.
In sum, the movie would fall sloppily into the long stream of pluralism movies and be little more than an exercise in the relativity of cultures -- up to a crucial point, and that is where this film parts company with the others and becomes something quite remarkable.
Like "Chariots of Fire", this movie takes two world views and compares them. Whether it be two reasons for running competitively, or two views of man's religious motives, the two movies facilitate an exchange between the two world views and finds them equallyHUMAN. In the case of Chariots they are found equally sympathetic. In Robe equally vulgar and superstitious. But then having done that, deftly and without blinking both films show that one is darkness and the other light.
The evidence for this is seen first of all in the priest, who though very much the arrogant Jesuit, (a remarkably accurate portrayal of that "Society of Jesus,"); and though he is possessed of all the medieval tom-foolery about a mystical paradise, yet truly is moved by acompassion that is not human, (in truth it is divine). His motive comes from somewhere else. Like Eric Liddle in Chariots of Fire, his *modus operandi* is the Biblically informed, Holy Spirit enlightened world view of the Christian. At the end when the Huron chief moved bysuperstition to request baptism, asks, "Do you love us?" we see a quick parade of the faces we have come to know, fear, and respect in the film; primarily we see people, -- neither straw men nor beasts -- whom the priest really does love, with a love that transcends cultural andethnic barriers -- a love that is Christianity's unique innovation in the world.
The other evidence for the "Christian=light/ aboriginal=dark" theme in this work is the eyes of the young Frenchman who travels with the priest. Most of the movie is seen through his eyes. He goes through all of the enchantment with the primitive that we would expect of idealistic youth. He struggles with all of the questions as to "what makes us think we have a better answer than they do?" And then in the torture chamber of the Iroquois after all the savagery, hears a terrible truth from his friend the magnificent Algonquian chief: Chief: "Now what do you think? Do you still want to be one of us?" Youth: "They are Iroquois They are animals." Chief: "Don't be a fool. We would have done the same thing." At the end, the youth, (our eyes), finally a believer, wants to continue on with the priest to the Huron village. The priest sends him back with the girl. "We have taken everything she has," a statement filled with the sadness that such conquests of pagan culture are necessary.
The epilogue states that the Hurons having accepted Christianity were massacred 15 years later. That sort of thing has indeed happened to many Indian tribes that gave up the religion of the war club for that of the cross. Those "failures" might well be seen as thedefinitive proof that the white man's religion was a curse upon everyone it touched. But the death of the martyr has always been a part of the Christian story. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," and all of that.
for more reviews by John Schuurman see http://www.mcs.com/&7Esjvogel/wcrc/movies.html
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