This post involves a close reading of the recent film Calvary by John Michael McDonagh. Of necessity I will be discussing some plot points that could be considered SPOILERS. In my opinion this is a film where the journey is more than the sum of the twists, but if you want to walk in with ignorance preserved, you might want to delay reading this post. Consider yourself warned. –Asher
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” – John 12:24
“Teach us to care and not to care/Teach us to sit still./Prayer for us sinners now and at the hour of our death/Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.” – T.S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday”
I was talking to a priest friend of mine last week. He’s been placed by his bishop in a congregation that, because of some recent troubles, finds itself struggling to survive. “We’re still in the ICU at the moment, but I’m preparing myself to be a hospice chaplain if need be,” he said, half joking but half not. It’s a nightmare scenario for pastors, to find oneself in the midst of a dwindling flock. We teach ourselves that growth in numbers is a sign of spiritual health. Maybe it is, but maybe we’ve also forgotten how to die with grace and witness.
This is a trouble in our personal lives as much as our ecclesial ones. One of the few “advantages” (so to speak) of watching my mother die over the course of two years was seeing her go in a way that spoke to the richness of her life. The many people who were touched in some way by my mother’s life found themselves drawn back into her orbit, to see her die with the same strength of conviction with which she lived. Many others are not so fortunate, losing loved ones in ways that speak not only to the pain of death, but to the overwhelming fear that accompanies it. We humans seem hell bent on avoiding death by any means, so we cordon it off, hoping that if we ignore death it might just go away.
Thoughts like these went whirling through my head as I sat through John Michael McDonagh’s new film Calvary. If you’ve heard nothing about the film, here’s the logline: a good priest (Brendan Gleeson) hears confession from a man who says he was raped by a priest as a child, and will kill Father James in return, because killing a good priest might actually get people to notice. The priest has one week to prevent his end, or at least make peace with it. This he does by going about life much as he always does, caring for his largely dispassionate congregation, the outsiders in his small Irish community, and his own daughter, in from London after a botched suicide attempt.
Even this simple description hints at the thematic layers of the film. Though not always handled with precision (in particular there are some ill-fitting music choices, and a handful of places where McDonagh underlines his ideas a little too eagerly), these themes give Calvary a core that resonates with meaning. The film has a lot on its mind. Aside from more obvious themes like the reverberations of the Catholic Clergy sex scandals and the nature of evil, it also tackles themes like being an outsider in a closed community, and the possibility of faith in a material age. I kept coming back, though, to what I think is the film’s central concern: how can we learn to die in a worthy manner? Calvary tackles this from a number of angles, presenting characters who have brushed up against death in the form of self-harm, old age, and chance tragedy.
I believe this concern with death is woven into the structure of the film. Obviously a film called Calvary that features a good priest going to his death has gone all in with its Christological overtones. But while I’ve seen numerous references to the film as a sort of passion play, no consideration I have seen has detected the very deep and structural ways in which Calvary confronts death through the lens of Christ’s lonely march to Golgotha and its aftermath. Namely, the film’s events are arranged to specifically reference the events of Holy Week (and one other key event in the Liturgical Calendar). Though Holy Week, the apex of the Christian year, contains a multitude of meanings, our ability to deal with death lies close to the heart of its true purpose. In Christ’s desperate, barren week, we see a pattern by which we might learn to confront our most bitter foe. Calvary recognizes the potency of the Passion week, and in doing so creates an atmosphere for studied reflection.
Palm Sunday
As Holy Week begins with Christ’s entrance to Jerusalem, so Calvary begins with two important arrivals. First, of course, is the arrival of the would be killer to confession. His promise to murder Father James sets the priest on his weary march toward death. Though he does not resign himself to death, Father James faces the real possibility that he has only a week to live. This arrival of a death sentence shapes the rest of the week, and colors James’ interactions with others in the town. The other arrival, though, is just as important: James’ daughter Fiona comes to town.[In the spirit of honesty I should admit that I cannot remember off the top of my head if Fiona shows up on Sunday, or if her arrival comes on Monday morning. I don't think that detail matters too much, as her coming feels like a clear announcement of something new in the film. It's thematically, if not literally, a Sunday event]. Her arrival is significant not only because she represents the relationship James most needs to resolve before his death, but also because she will be, by film’s end, the truest disciple he has.
[Note: for word count purposes, and because not much happens liturgically on these days, I'm skipping Monday and Tuesday in this discussion. Most of what happens on these days in the film seems plot oriented anyway, in such a way that continues the set up of events and relationships that will develop in the film's later sections.]
Ash Wednesday
Let me cut you off, church nerd who is about to say “BUT ASH WEDNESDAY IS NOT A PART OF HOLY WEEK!” I know that. This is that “one additional day” I mentioned above. The Wednesday of Holy Week does not have a distinct importance; it gets lumped together with Monday and Tuesday as the lead up to the end of the week. Ash Wednesday, however, which begins the season of Lent (a time of penance to prepare for Easter), has incredible resonance in the Christian life. Ash Wednesday stands as a main memento mori in the Christian tradition: a reminder that man returns to the earth upon death. It’s a bit of a downer day, to be honest, especially smacked right up against Fat Tuesday, the last day of partying before the fasting comes.
Calvary mimics this sobering message in the events that play out on the Wednesday of the film. Father James continues his usual ministrations, bearing the immense weight of the various troubles of his congregation. At day’s end, he gathers with the town’s other citizens in the pub. Everyone goes a little nuts. Beer flows like water, and cocaine finds its way into the mix. The townspeople dance and celebrate with all the vigor of those with no knowledge of death. Then, in the midst of it all, they discover that the church is on fire. The killer has given a foretaste of the danger to come, and taken one more measure of vengeance against the Catholic Church, by burning to the ground its symbol in the village. An almost too literal reminder of the ashes the priest puts on parishioners foreheads every Ash Wednesday: remember, you shall die.
Maundy Thursday
Here is where things get interesting. Maundy Thursday plays a key role in the events of Holy Week. Though the Last Supper is about getting the gang together one more time, it has a much deeper significance as well. It acts as a passing on of the legacy, where Jesus commissions the disciples to carry on his work. He does this through the most intimate acts possible, eating and drinking and the washing of feet.
Though there’s no foot washing on the Thursday in Calvary, the film does preserve the eating and drinking motif. Fiona prepares to leave her father to go back to London. They spend the day together and are very intentionally shown sharing a last meal. This symbolic act emphasizes an important truth: over the course of the week, Father James and Fiona have been able to reconcile to each other and to affirm their love. James’ many failings are forgiven, and he experiences the full love of his daughter once more. This is especially important because, as I shall show, by the end of the film Fiona has become James’ truest (and perhaps only) disciple.
The Isenheim Altarpiece, painted by Mathis Grunewald. One of my favorite depictions of the Passion.
Good Friday/Easter Saturday
Sometimes mistakenly thought of as the culmination of Holy Week (thanks in part to the pervasive over emphasis of the Passion at the expense of the Resurrection), Good Friday is nevertheless the most present, most fleshly day of the Week. I won’t retell the story of the crucifixion here, but keep in mind Christ’s physical and spiritual torments on this day, how he experienced pain and abandonment to the uttermost. Though Friday is not the day marked out for Father James’ death, it does mark the low point of his Passion week. His daughter gone, his hope fading, he finds himself pushed to the brink by the death of his faithful dog Bruno, who has his throat cruelly slit. Enraged, James succumbs to his ultimate temptation: a recovering alcoholic, he plunges one last time into the bottle, with abandon. In doing so he loses sight of the calm endurance which has guided him through his week of trials, and finally snaps at the provocations of those who mock him. He ends the day bloodied, beaten by a group of his tormenters.
According to tradition, as Christ was buried he descended into Hell. Some interpret this literally, others more figuratively, but regardless, Easter Saturday represents a day of lying fallow, of being cut off from the world. Saturday takes up little time in Calvary, but its events are crucial. Feeling lost and forsaken, James packs up and drives out of town, determined to leave his home. Like Christ in his descent, he has entered the underworld of forgetting, the cold comfort of the grave’s escape. Yet faced with the firm witness of a woman of faith, he finally embraces his need to return. He has beaten the death of disconnection.
Easter Sunday
The film’s cruelest inversion, perhaps. A day of joy for Christians, to celebrate Christ’s victory over death, but for Father James only the slow march toward that death. But even as he does succumb to physical death, his insides splattered on the beach, James experiences a resurrection of sorts. As he kneels to pray before his final walk, his hands are still visibly scarred from his encounter at the bar – in fact, they bear marks that look suspiciously like the nail holes in Christ, which he kept even after his resurrection. James has been filled with the same holy power that allows him to walk into death with an open heart and full forgiveness. He confronts the killer with grace and certainty, knowing how little real power death has over him. And after, a miracle. The last shot of the film shows Fiona going to prison to speak with her father’s killer. It is clear that she has become her father’s disciple and embraced the way of sacrificial love. In this way James has not died a barren death – his love has resurrected into a new form.
So what does this all mean? Why does McDonagh play around with this story structure? Is Calvary a Christian film? To that last question I say no (but first I say, what makes a film Christian, exactly?). But it is, as Flannery O’Connor would say, a Christ-haunted film, one shot through with the humming tension of the Passion. Calvary is not out to win converts but to bring about a confrontation with the realities we all must face as humans. One problem that most of the film’s characters share is that of detachment. The word comes up again and again, spoken by many different characters. Many of the townspeople seek detachment in the form of pleasure, through drugs or sex which leave them empty but distracted. A financier has lost his family through detachment from the world. A young man turns his awkwardness with women into an excuse to separate himself from the world. An atheist doctor can only cope with the terrors of death through cheap humor. Even Father James’ fellow priest only goes through the motions, lacking the integrity to truly deal with his congregation’s problems.
James too struggles with detachment. He is tempted to shrug off the horrendous lives of his parishioners through his own brand of cynicism. He struggles to connect with his troubled daughter. But as he comes face to face with death, he learns in his own broken way to enter into the suffering of the world in acts of incarnation. He fights against detachment through the burdensome task of giving himself away. In doing so, he does not magically cure any ailments. The people of his village seem little changed by his death, and their worries continue. But his act of utter foolishness does enact change, however small. He inspires his daughter to take up her own cross, and in doing so shows mercy to the killer, who could feel only condemnation and self-hatred. His stunning act of love echoes Christ’s words from the cross: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
When we find ourselves confronted with death, what is our response? A natural impulse is detachment, to sunder ourselves from human feeling in order to numb pain. But this detachment cuts us off from the possibility of something better, of a death imbued with meaning, however hidden. Whatever your view of an afterlife, death need not be a finality. Like the kernel that falls to the ground, by pouring ourselves out for others we plant a harvest that may continue to yield fruit long after we are gone. That is the foolish, insane, yet breathtakingly profound revelation at the heart of Holy Week, and (in a much more reflected, obscure way) Calvary too.
