Just back from the cinema, where I saw:
First Reformed (2018)
First impressions are that it was incredible, a modern masterpiece for sure. The plot concerns Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke), a middle-aged pastor at an small, old church in upstate New York and the crisis of faith he experiences. He is haunted by the death of his son in the Iraq War and suffers from physical ailments (which later appears to be cancer), worsened by his apparent alcoholism. Although the specifics are not immediately clear, almost immediately you are given the impression that this is a man struggling with his faith and "the sickness unto death" (Kierkegaard is quoted later in the film) despite his role as a pastor. He begins to keep a journal to help, which are given in the form if voice-overs. I don't want to spoil the film by going into too much detail about what actually causes his "dark night of the soul", but he is asked by one of the women (Amanda Seyfried) in his church to speak with her husband, a radical environmentalist who has recently been released from prison and who wants her to abort their child. He has lost all hope and she asks Toller to speak with him. Soon a number of events occur which have a profound impact on Toller - leading him to question his faith, and deal with issues like mans search for meaning, pollution and global warming, the spiritual and profane, and so on. It's a very powerful film, one that leaves you with lingering questions after you leave the cinema.
The first thing I said to my friend was that it was like
Diary of a Country Priest crossed with
Winter Light with some
Taxi Driver thrown in. It is very much in the mould of the first two films, stylistically it is very austere, it treats it's subject matter with seriousness, and there are several plot points (mainly early on) which are undoubtedly supposed to refer the view back to Winter Light. I doubt it was accidental. The aspect ratio of 1.37:1 would also seem to call back to those films. In some sense it updates the religious films of Bresson, Bergman, and Dreyer as well, for our own time period. The element of a diary/journal in a film like this obviously invites comparison with Diary of a Country Priest. The fear of nuclear annihilation in Winter Light becomes fear of global warming and the destruction of planet earth. The film thus seems to suggest that although the context is different, the anxiety and despair is the same. Not to say it is an utterly hopeless film, it deals with these complex issues but it is, of course, never fully resolved. The ending is extremely dramatic as well, I imagine some viewers might be polarised by it...but I found it very refreshing. The sort of film I just love to see in the cinema.
