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19 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :- postmodern take on the story of Mary is surprisingly more relevant today than when it was released., 9 November 2005 Author: daydreamblvr1210 from United States
This is a fascinating film. The story of a modern day Virgin Mary dealing with issues like human sexuality and the divinity as well as themes of "intelligent design" /creationism are challenging for the viewer to say the least. Godard has always been way ahead of his time in terms of formal aspects of film as well as socio-political points of view. This film was shot in 1984-85 and he addresses issues that are very relevant to the contemporary resurgence of faith - especially in American society today.The fact that the professor's teachings are thinly veiled creationism as science is very revealing. It provides background and encourages the viewer question what is really going on with Mary and the idea of the creator/divine affecting her body and her life.The nudity is not exploitative. A feminist reading of the film would probably be positive since the character of Mary is shown as intensely self-aware and strong rather than victimized or exploited.The cinematography of Menoud and Firmann is excellent throughout. This applies to both the nature photography as well as the narrative composed shots. I think a lot of the shots were composed with the idea of replicating some classical paintings (Giotto, Fra Angelico) with severe fore-shortening. The sound track is multiple-layered mix of music from Bach (St. Matthew's Passion, concertos) and Dvorak, dialog and sounds of natural environment and wildlife. It's a relatively short film (78 minutes)- but it's amazing to see and hear how densely compact it is with a very complex relationship of sound and image. The way this film tackles the concept of divinity as it pertains to modern life is bound to cause controversy amongst conservative followers of organized religion precisely because it forces you to question what is taken as absolute. Whether you find it blasphemous or reverent is beside the point -that's the difference between spoonfed mainstream movies( like POTC) and the engaging cinema of Godard. You will find no moralistic pandering here. If you are close-minded or easily upset about nudity, then this film is not for you. If you have an open mind and are just curious to see what one of the true masters of cinema was capable of 20 years ago then you should see this interesting film. If you are willing to question the story of Mary not only from a theological perspective but from a post-modern point of view, then it is essential viewing.
23 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :- oui, non, 11 June 2005 Author: byrmcusyty from Bangladesh
Hmmm...I don't know if anything that I say about this movie will be relevant to anyone else. This movie has been in my consciousness for over 20 years and has influenced me in one way or another.Trivia: It was because of the moving and sublime use of Mahler's 9th and Bach's Partita in this movie that I sought out the works of these composers and they've since become important points in my musical foundation.At the lake the professor speaks of signals from outer space, the sound in the background is an electronic bzzt bzzt...but in the next shot we see the sound is merely the professor's magic marker as he doodles.Mary politely nodding to instructions given by her basketball coach while piano music (J.S.Bach's wtc book1 prelude 1) swells in and out overwhelming the coach and the noise on the basketball court. She is still smiling and nodding and acting according to the earthly matters at hand even though The Voice calls to her. It is a very beautiful piece of cinema.Mary and Joseph talking on the pier. In order to see him, Mary has to block out the blinding sun with her hand: that's the whole meaning of Mary brilliantly focused into one image.The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe appears first as a monologue by the student guiding the rubik's cube manipulator's hand to the solution, and then later as a monologue by Mary guiding Joseph's hand.The "oui, non" strophe/antistrophe also appears in Godard's short film "Armide", his part of "Aria".The little girl angel instructing Mary to "be pure, be tough." (I only have the Japanese DVD, so I'm paraphrasing. The original French is more flowing.) This is the first New Wave film - the first Godard film - I ever saw.I discovered Jean-Luc Godard by reading James Monaco's "The New Wave".I only plucked the Monaco book off the library shelf because at the time I was obsessed with "New Wave" bands like The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, New Order, etc.The lipstick circles Myriem Roussel's open mouth, the end.
14 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :- typically iconoclastic Godard, 8 July 2001 Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN
Hail Mary is done in the exact same style as the only other late Godard film I've seen, First Name: Carmen, which, I believe, he did right before this one. The narrative is fractured, much more so than even his classical films such as Breathless and Pierrot le fou, and it is impossible to understand exactly what's going on. Like in many of his early films, he plays with sound effects and music. It may have been clever and interesting in Une femme est une femme, but it has grown old here.Still, Hail Mary, like First Name: Carmen, musters enough mood to make it well worth seeing. With First Name: Carmen, I was interested at the beginning and bored by the end. Here, although the prologue is quite good, the first half of the real film bothered me, and the second half grew more interesting as it progressed. What I'm saying here is that you have to stick with it and be patient. It can be rewarding.Also, Hail Mary seemed to me one of Godard's more visually accomplished films, probably second to Vivre sa vie. You'll see some of the most gorgeous photographs of clouds and the sun, the moon, fields, flowers, and nude women. Some of the nudes are absolutely stunning and it never felt to me pornographic (unlike First Name: Carmen). They reminded me of beautiful paintings that I have seen by the likes of Lucien Freud (I don't know if people know him, but I was particularly struck by some of his sleeping nudes; I think he is the son of Sigmund, and I know he was a companion of Francis Bacon). Other more abstract photos reminded me of Picasso. 7/10.
1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :- Hail Mary, 10 August 2008 Author: Michael_Elliott from Louisville, KY
Hail Mary (1985) ** 1/2 (out of 4) I guess it goes without saying but here's yet another religious film that sparked off controversy when originally released. There were mobs of protesters at theaters across the world and even the Catholic Church tried to get it banned even though God knows they should have been dealing with other issues and not a movie. With that said, I'm really not sure what any of the fuss was about as the film never once offends God, Mary, Joseph or Jesus. In the film, Mary (Myriem Roussel) is your typical teenager who enjoys playing basketball and working at her father's gas station. Her boyfriend Joseph (Thierry Rode), a taxi driver, is getting frustrated because Mary won't let him touch her after dating for two years but his fears and jealous grow worse when Mary turns up pregnant. Godard re-telling this story in modern times is a pretty interesting touch and I think the final message from the movie is that Mary was human like any other woman and not just a cartoon character. Pretty much the said thing Martin Scorsese did with The Last Temptation of Christ in terms of Jesus being a real human and we all know the controversy that film started. As for this film, I really don't see any need for any type of controversy. Mary is seem naked throughout the movie so perhaps this is what some got upset about but I'm pretty sure the real Mary was naked at some point in her life. I think Godard handles the film fairly well even though we get several scenes of Godard being Godard with some strange edits, rambling nonsense and some scenes that amount to nothing. I'm not sure what Godard's reasons where for making this film but I think the utter strangeness really helps the film and certainly makes it stand out among other religious movies. Roussel is terrific in the role of Mary and really captures the confused teenage nature of the role. I thought she was very good in the way she handles her character's thoughts, feelings and emotions. The support cast also turns in fine work. Back to the nudity, which seems to raise a lot of controversy. Mary is often challenged with the question that is the body a part of the soul or is the soul a part of the body. I think this wondering by Mary makes good use of the nudity and that the nude actress isn't just being shown to arouse male viewers or to be anywhere near pornographic. Godard's use of classical music is another nice bonus as are some great shots of the wilderness. I've read several reviews of this film, which range from four-stars to a BOMB but I'm somewhere in the middle.
6 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :- Polemic and Boring Mess, 18 July 2008 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The student Marie (Myriem Roussel), who plays basketball and works in the gas station of her father, gets pregnant without having intercourse. The taxi driver Joseph (Thierry Rode) becomes upset and the newcomer in town Gabriel (Philippe Lacoste) convinces Joseph to accept her pregnancy. Meanwhile the college student Eva (Anne Gautier) has an affair with her professor.In the 80's, the exhibition of the polemic "Je Vous Salue, Marie" was forbidden in Brazil due to pressure of the Catholic Church in the government. I believe this unexpected marketing is the greatest attraction of this boring movie. The screenplay is a complete mess and the soundtrack and the nudities of Myriem Roussel and Anne Gautier are the best offered in this pretentious philosophic crap. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "Je Vous Salue, Marie"
10 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :- maybe my least favorite Godard, 26 August 2004 Author: MisterWhiplash from United States
After checking out a couple of Godard's eighties work (First Name: Carmen, which is a very good movie, and King Lear, which is one of the most fascinating, car-wreck adaptations of Shakespeare to come out of European cinema), I knew I had to check out Hail Mary, as by historical account got the kind of treatment that was almost bestowed on Last Temptation of Christ and Dogma. The religious right in America and abroad thought of the film as blasphemous (many said this before seeing this) and crude. I wouldn't compare Hail Mary to Last Temptation in controversy, since neither one really has anything to be controversial about. Whatever a viewer might take the film as, good or bad, it doesn't degrade or spit on the Christian religion and its eternally 'sacred' story of the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. It is Godard, after all, and outside of Weekend (a straight-up satire of the 60's radicalism and revolutionary air in France at the time), he hasn't tried to deliberately get people ticked off by his work. By my account, though, Hail Mary isn't a great movie, a good movie, or a particularly engrossing account of the tale, despite the hype.The story is fiddled through the Godardian consciousness as such: a teenage basketball player named Mary (Myriem Roussel), with a boyfriend who drives a Taxi named Joseph (Thierry Rode), is visited by a foul and entirely no non-sense uncle Gabriel (Philippe Lacoste, one of only two acting appearances ever) and told she will conceive God's child despite never having had sex with no one, including Joseph. This sparks a rage in Joseph, and disillusionment in Mary, who can't figure out what to do with the situation. The rest of the film unfolds in a style that reminded me of what Godard did later on with Nouvelle Vague, where-in whenever images are presented that suggest that Godard (in another life outside of being a new-wave pioneer) been more fit in his later days to be directing nature documentaries as opposed to feature-length films. There aren't many emotions outside of coldness between the supposed lovers Mary and Joseph, and scenes of a compulsively naked Roussel that inspire only one really memorable shot (I won't reveal it, but I found it freaky in how real it might have or might have not been).There were problems I had with Hail Mary, as I have stated, and when the film was over the recent religious film gaining hoopla came to mind- Gibson's Passion of the Jesus. The two problems I had with both films were these- the first, for non-Christians or non believers in HIM, there is not real entry portal to really get into the sympathy of the character of Mary. She feels pain, resentment, love, all of these things for God, and the way the film presents it if you don't have or have not had before a kind of feeling or attitude towards God and Christianity (the entailing symbolism Godard uses included) the dramatizes of it all won't fit. The second, for a film, even what is supposedly a film in high regards to the great artists of the celluloid, dealing with as strong a subject as immaculate conception (with POTC it was the gradual torture and death of Jesus, besides the point), this is a highly boring and dis-jointed result. For all the images of nudity and skies and oceans and roads, there isn't really much that it amounts to. This isn't helped by the performances either- Roussel, Rode, Lacoste, and even young Juliette Binoche either didn't get the right directions (or the on-the-fly style of Godard didn't work with them), or they just pushed the realism envelope to its limit and too beyond. Roussel's a lovely young girl and a fair actress, but when the audience gets to see a supporting character (Anderson's character) show more emotion in her face, her eyes, there's trouble. Rode also creates little by over-acting, or not being there at all emotionally. Perhaps another minor beef I had with Godard's treatment of the subject matter was this- by taking the 'His creation' story (which it is at base level, believe in it or not), really as much of a leap of faith as is the details of Jesus' crucifixion, in such a dead-pan, no humor, morose attitude, Godard tries for a kind of neo-realism that backfires. Why not make the film a straight out satire, or have fun with the story elements like with Gabriel's character (I was hoping his would be the one cool element of the film, but it's hard to keep of track of him)? The short film that precedes the film by occasional collaborator Anne-Marie Mieville, at least has a light-hearted feeling to it, and let's art combining well with empathetic characters (Smith's Dogma serves as another example, however more in the mainstream than here). By the time Godard rumbles and plods through his images and music, a soundtrack that manages some of the few interesting parts of the film (Bach, Dvorak, and Coltrane are some artists among others that sometimes get annoyingly sampled over and over to no effect), and gets to Mary's end moment, the catharsis is empty and frustrating. Here his logic is generally, if not altogether, a one-note concept stretched out with practically one-note emotions strung out from the watchable yet poor actors, and there's one or two sub-plots in the film that boggles the mind. Maybe if I watched the film without sound it'd be of some interest on a mis-en-scene level, though even that wears thin. It's surely my least favorite film of the director's so far, and at best I can say that, like 'The Passion', you won't get it (or Roussel's private parts if you're that type of person) out of your head.
1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :- the gospel according to jean-luc, 18 January 2007 Author: tsf-1962 from United States
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
The late Pope John Paul II said this film "deeply wounds the religious sentiments of believers." It may well be that the Roman Catholic hierarchy's cover-up of pedophile priests has done more to wound the religious sentiments of believers than any mere movie could. The controversy over "Hail, Mary," like the controversies surrounding "The Last Temptation of Christ," "The Passion of the Christ," and "The Da Vinci Code" shows that any time a filmmaker deals with religious issues in his work he risks offending a sizable constituency. That's understandable: faith is an important part of most people's lives, and in a world rife with religious divisions you can't please everyone. Who knows? Maybe you shouldn't try. "Hail Mary," though obscure and enigmatic in Godard's finest manner, is nowhere as blasphemous as most of Luis Bunuel's stuff. In updating the story of the Nativity to contemporary France he nowhere denies the historical truth of the Virgin Birth or the divinity of Christ. "Hail, Mary" marks a turning-point in Godard's career when he abandoned the materialism of his Maoist period for a more spiritual, philosophical approach. Beautiful Myriem Roussel gives a striking portrayal of the Virgin Mary as a high school basketball player who works at her father's gas station; when her thuggish boyfriend Joseph (Thierry Rode) learns she's pregnant he's understandably suspicious. The film is touching as it deals with two ordinary people trying to make sense of something extraordinary entering and disrupting their lives; one can well believe that the historical Mary and Joseph went through just such struggles as the couple in the film. We get only a brief glimpse of the boy Jesus, but his death on the Cross is clearly foreshadowed. Interestingly, Godard uses some of the same music that Pasolini used in "The Gospel According to Saint Matthew." "Hail Mary" deals with complicated themes of the meaning of life, the wonder of birth, creation v. evolution, in an intelligent and thoughtful way far superior to the strident agitprop produced by American evangelicals. A beautiful if perplexing film.
1 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :- The story of Mary and Joseph illustrates that love is a response to the mystery of the other person's spirit., 28 January 2007 Author: tfmorris from United States
I like this film a lot, but I first have to get past my reaction to the whale game. The problem is not merely that mother and son are involved in an erotic game, but that they play it with such enthusiasm. She just mentions the possibility of not playing the game later on, and they are both quick to play it, like lovers who can't wait for nighttime and who dive into bed at the thought of sex. What it means must be connected to the scene in which Marie is bathing and talking about enjoying showing her body to God. Her son is somehow the same as God. Even at the end of the movie, Joseph still isn't getting anything; this is Mary's only sexuality. Of course God is spirit, but her son would be spirit incarnated. Because it is just a question of exposing her body, there would be no physical love. So I guess it is just Mary's way of reestablishing her relationship with God.If we were on a different planet we would all look different. As we are, we would look strange to someone from a different planet. As the doctor said, women are essentially mysterious. Joseph loves Marie rightly when he has that sense of her mysteriousness.There is a contrast with the affair between the professor and one of his students. He thinks that evolution requires some sort of intelligent design, but sees it in terms of a more advanced race coming to earth to steer the evolutionary process. He acknowledges the girl's suggestion of the possibility of God being the intelligent designer, but only as an afterthought. When he eventually leaves her he says that the world is not sad; it's big. The particular is not important; it is just part of this big scheme of things. The scheme of things dwarfs the particular, and thus there is no sadness. On the other hand, if you see the particular as coming from God, the particular is of the highest importance. It becomes mysterious through its relationship with its mysterious source—thus enabling right love.I felt that all this was confirmed by one of those bird calls. The bird, for one reason or another, is announcing it's presence. There is something out there over and above what our senses present to our mind's eye. That's the point of all the animal noises. On the other hand, the sound of the wind represents the presence of God. The sun and the moon represent the eternal. The significance of the repeated words "At that time" would be that the various events are happening in the temporal world. The angels come in at the airport; the landing airplanes represent the eternal becoming directly involved with the temporal.All the writhing on the bed would be Mary's effort to deal with temptation. The long shot of the fingers in the bush indicate that the temptation is that of masturbation. Hence someone can say, "Hail Mary!" Her chastity—which is not the chastity of do not lead me into temptation—was a real accomplishment. What she couldn't get from basketball's excitement and exhaustion was comfort. But flesh qua flesh is not comforting. It is the presence of the spirit in the flesh that allows flesh to be comforting. This spirit is suggested by the shot of Mary's open mouth at the end of the film. There is something mysterious animating this body.When the professor is talking we hear Godard's own voice repeating the word "earth" in a reverential way. Godard has a reverence for this mysterious world we find ourselves on.There must be some connection between the first film and the second. Marie needs the comfort that Mary finds in God. There's no comfort for Joseph though. No wonder at the end of the film he is still threatening to leave. Worse yet he has to see his wife playing whale with the child. Seeing her nakedness was all the sex that he had, and now the kid is having it too. But, no; it's different. He expressed love in response to her nakedness, and she is just telling the kid what people call various parts of the body. What is said conventionally about the body is the opposite of appreciating the mysteriousness of the body.The shots of the dog and the shots of the paired animals and the donkey at the end of the film are meant to represent the strangeness of the body. Seeing the body as a freak mutant along with other freak mutants helps give us the sense of the (mysterious) spirit that is housed in the mysterious body.When Mary asks the doctor whether we are spirits with bodies or bodies with spirits, it is very important to her. If we were bodies with spirits, then her denial of fleshly comfort would be denying what is primary.There is something going on with money. Joseph can pay in two years. The rich people make Joseph wait days for them. The second naked girl gives the professor thousands of franks. She thinks he is a zero when he acts cool about giving it back to her. He is merely thinking about his status as he leaves her. He shakes hands with some other people after saying goodbye to her. Saying goodbye to her is just one more duty. He is acting as if there is nothing significant there, so she honks as the bird calls: I am here!
2 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- Is this a good film of Godard?, 6 January 2007 Author: vetapublishing from Australia
The best part of this film is the music. It is Classic. Dvorak Cello Concerto and Bach Chaconne is well shuffled even before IPod existed. So are the shots. Shuffled, repetitive, boring. The story? Confusing. Religion has nothing to do with my comments. I am an Atheist. While the actress playing the Virgin has a beautiful body and the naked shots are most enjoyable, the script does not allow her to utter an intelligent or intelligible sentence. The other actors are not convincing either. They are not real, and in that respect the virgin birth could be acceptable in the environment as presented. Could this film be regarded as a great director's mistake?Andrew B.
9 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :- WOW! If this film doesn't blow you away, nothing will!, 18 February 1999 Author: Joseph SMilie (peggygravel@hotmail.com) from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
I found a copy of this film for three bucks, I figured that was a great deal, even if it is in a different language (lucky for me there were subtitles)! When this film came out in the mid eighties it was all about controversy. Many people called the film Blasphemy, so what if it is, you don't have to watch it. But with all that aside, anyone who doesn't spend every night talking to a god, will proudly see this film for what it is, and was. AN AMAZING FILM, a classical TRIUMPH! If anyone can track down a copy of this at least TRY to watch it!On a scale of ONE to TEN, HAIL MARY gets a TEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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