"JESUS will be in agony until the end of the world and we cannot
sleep during this time." Pascal may have said this, but it could
just as easily be Father Weber (Florian Stetter) in Stations of
the Cross (Cert. 15). In this contemporary tale, the priest
instructs his confirmation class of young teenagers. We soon learn
that this is a Roman Catholic sect that abhors the reforms ushered
in by the Second Vatican Council.
Each time we say no to pretty dresses, dance music, or cake, we
make room for Jesus, Weber says. Self-sacrifice can be God's means
of grace, not just for ourselves, but others. One of the
candidates, Maria (Lea van Acken, above, right), takes all
this to heart.
At home, she stops eating food and avoids warmth as a means of
healing her brother Johannes, who, at the age of four, has yet to
speak. Maria's family don't help, putting further strains on the
girl by preventing her joining a choir. At school, Maria's
religious scruples distance her from schoolmates. Lack of
nourishment leads to her falling under the weight of the cross she
is bearing for others. The scenario rapidly becomes a Via
Dolorosa.
Dietrich Brüggemann has directed a film full of pathos but also
ironic humour: not iconoclastic about religion itself, but offering
a critique of some of its extremes. The film is framed in 14
episodes and mainly confined to a single shot from a deep-focus
point of view. Each chapter has the title of one of the stages of
the journey to Calvary. As the camera rarely moves, we're reminded
of the kind of contemplation worshippers give to every tableau as
they move in a church from Station to Station.
I was reminded of Corpo Celeste (Arts, 6 April
2012), about a similarly aged girl perplexed by faith as she
approached confirmation. Stations of the Cross, however,
places viewers in an impossible double bind. Without spoiling it
for would-be viewers, I can say that the film's conclusion plays
illogical havoc with the value of sacrifice and/or the efficacy of
the Blessed Sacrament.
Perhaps the overall idea is to expose secularism in terms of
what its director and his sister Anna, who wrote the screenplay,
regard as "swimming in a sea of meaningless actionism". But is the
religion on hand in this film an acceptable alternative? I don't
think so; nor do the Brüggemanns. Nostalgia and yearning for more
faith-filled times haunt the film, but not on Weber's terms, nor,
perhaps, even those of mainstream Christianity.
On current release