Priestcore

Spoilers for Godland (2022), First Reformed (2017), Diary of a Country Priest (1951), Fleabag (2016-2019), Silence (2016), Calvary (2014), The Exorcist (1973), Corpus Christi (2019)

Sometimes I wonder about the thematic interest of seeing religious figures grapple with their faith. You could even call it a practice in critical thinking for them. Where is the line of logic and faith drawn? It is gratifying to see these figures contemplate their apathy, their yearning, because don’t we all do these things? And I suppose a priest is seen as the lead example of “goodness” (though reality often contradicts this notion).

But maybe it is because of the changed perspectives on priests that seeing them on screen makes them more interesting characters. Knowing the horrors of the church, how can one be a good man when a part of such an institution? Ethan Hawk’s character, Pastor Ernst Toller, in First Reformed (2017, directed by Paul Schrader), wavers between what he believes a godly man should do and what he is being told to do. He works at a historic church, a building that is a representation of his faith. Old fashioned and losing attendees. His church is under the umbrella of another, a megachurch, ever expanding and taking large donations from politicians and congregation. This is new Christianity (or perhaps a new coat for the old one), one that Pastor Toller does not recognise. He does not do things politically, he’s not playing a game to move up the ladder or find a more comfortable position, which gets him in trouble after the death of one of his church members. He follows the dead’s wishes, which is to have their ashes scattered at a toxic waste dump accompanied by a protest song. This doesn’t sit well with a patron of the church, a wealthy factory owner. So Pastor Toller faces one of his many issues, to follow what he believes he should do or what he’s supposed to do. The whole film is him fighting against his own judgement, unable to see where he might be wrong, or taking on things he was never asked to carry. Often, one’s own morals conflicts with those of institutions.

Perhaps our fascination with the fallen priest, pastor, preacher, chaplain, is that the other worldly becomes worldly. That they are human too. I was wondering if it had to do with a second lost innocence. First innocence is lost when leaving childhood and that religion is an attempt to reenter it. A priest succumbing to lust, greed, etc, shows the folly of man and confirms that innocence once lost is lost forever. Adam and Eve cannot reenter Eden.

Whilst watching Godland (2022, directed by Hlynur Pálmason), I began to wonder more on this subject. The priest, Lucas, immediately seems to regret his trip from Denmark to Iceland but finds comfort in his time spent with his translator, a friendship that I thought leaned a little on the romantic side. But Lucas later gets the translator killed, having his party cross a high river, which the translator drowns in and a large cross is also lost in the process. When the one man Lucas was able to talk too is gone, he prays to die, he prays about his regrets. I thought it was interesting too, Lucas starts the film with a beard and shaves it off the scene before they cross the river. I looked into the symbology of shaving ones beard, in The Old Testament, Leviticus 19:27, it states, "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." So is Lucas in that scene betraying God and so is punished later for his hubris in refusing the experienced guides wishes to not cross the river, resulting in the death of his one friend? The beard does not return and his character continues to act on his ego. He is conflicted, as holy men tend to be in these films. To be priestly is inherently isolating. People come to you and all you have to go to is God. Someone who only answers subtly.

God never behaves biblically in these stories. Rage is lacking. It is the internal conflict of the priest that fuels the fire, glimpses of raw human emotion. Lucas and Pastor Toller are stoics desperate to scream. This is different than the priest in Diary of a Country Priest and The Priest in Fleabag. Priests who are openly conflicted and emotional.

In Diary of a Country Priest (1951, directed by Robert Bresson), the priest is young, inexperienced and sickly. He hides nothing, trying to be open with the townsfolk who reject him in return. He has no friends and the only time we see him in mass there is only one person in attendance. When he tries to assert himself, confronting the Countess about her husbands affair and treatment of her daughter, after she finally moves on from her sons death, is at peace but soon dies. This conversation is overheard by her daughter who lies and says the priest belittled the woman to death. The priest, even when doing his duty, is socially punished. He cannot win even when he does the right thing and acts according to his station. Priesthood is always at odds with what is right and what is acceptable. Is it not a priests duty to help a mother grieve the loss of her child? Should he not also stand up for himself when confronted on it? He can do the former but not the later. His lack of faith in God, in prayer, is a lack of faith in himself. Throughout the film he writes that he cannot pray, that he knows he should but doesn’t. I wonder what is he afraid to hear? Is he afraid to hear nothing?

Though the films ends with the priest on his death bed saying “All is grace”, up until literally dying, the priest is despondent at best. He and the countess both die soon after finding peace with god. Is the film saying everyone else is doomed to live forsaken lives? No, maybe it is saying that there is always time to find peace. That despite the harness of life, one can find comfort in the unknown.

Similar to the priest in Diary of a Country Priest, the “priest” Daniel in Corpus Christi (2019, directed by Jan Komasa) struggles with doing the right thing and what is expected of him. Daniel pretends to be a priest in a small town and though enjoying himself in the role (due to a criminal record he cannot become an actual priest), he is confronted with the small town mentality of sweeping things under the rug. Corpus Christi also touches on redemption in a way the other priest stories don’t. In most of the other stories, these were priests were good if not complacent men. Daniel on the other hand just got out of jail for second-degree murder. And unlike the priests previously mentioned, he takes great joy in his work. Perhaps it is because of this redemption he finds a sense of purpose from it. It is evident at the beginning of the film that the story is about apathy. The prison priest, Daniel’s mentor, says he does not pray mechanically. The tragedy of the film is Daniel, who will not be forgiven (ie his criminal record prevents him from becoming a priest), and tries for the whole film to prove forgiveness is possible. His tragedy is providing forgiveness for one man but not for himself and returns to his old ways, back in prison. This story stands out in this collection of priests and perhaps because Daniel is not actually a priest. But the story ends with a similar nihilism that keeps cropping up in these stories. In a society unwilling to forgive, how is anyone meant to change?

Daniel has no inner conflict about God but about the world he lives in and who he should or could be in it. How violence eats at itself, how institutions are infested with it. He sees through the facade of keeping up appearances, is able to see how each person has sinned, but he does not cast judgement but instead compassion. He refuses to be apathetic in a world of apathy.

But I must talk about the ending, where Daniel is back in prison and gets into a fight with the brother of the man he killed. It’s brutal and before Daniel can finish smashing the man’s head into the floor he is pulled away by a man who’d caught him in his priest act, saying “Not you”. Daniel’s eyes are popping out of his head, back to where he started.

I don’t know what I can say about The Priest in Fleabag (2016-2019, directed by Harry Bradbeer) that hasn’t already been said, but I would be remiss not to mention him in an essay about the thematics of priesthood. Having a priest be a love interest is an inherently interesting idea. A man not allowed to marry, to have lovers, children, a man of the people for no one alone. The beauty of The Priest is his recognition of desire but that it, like any emotion, will pass. It is easy to get lost in ones desires, to flirt back, to have a drink, to fain friendship when both parties are well aware of the romantic spark. The Priest openly acknowledges these things because of his love of God not in spite of it. He falls into similar issues as the others, to pick a life of holiness, it’s easy to slip up. To do what one thinks one should do rather than what is right. What makes The Priest different is his active choice to pick God. For the others on this list, God is a burden. God is a lover playing the silent treatment while in Fleabag God is a character. God knocks down paintings in protest, timings just seem a little too right, God lets themselves be known to The Priest over and over again. He is never in doubt of his existence, just of how he would like to live in it.

If God was indeed real, how would you choose to live your life? Would you choose servitude, forsaking a life with the woman you love? I’m so fascinated by The Priest’s internal conflict because he never doubts his faith. It’s a play on the typical tropes of his type of character. That lack of doubt. In a way, falling in love is more unstable than faith, because he and Fleabag could’ve run off together but what then? Who is he if not The Priest? When he tells Fleabag “It’ll pass” (a gut punch of a line), it’s almost like he’s saying “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. None of this will matter someday. It’s a rather nihilistic way of interpreting him, but maybe that’s what he tells himself. And that’s also what’s different about The Priest in comparison to the other characters I’ve mentioned. He doesn’t seem too concerned with the afterlife, he loves the idea of it, but he is not Lucas begging God to let him die, he’s not Pastor Toller discussing God in the wake of climate change or the sickly Priest coming to terms with the harshness of life. The Priest in Fleabag loves people, but he is a man who cannot fully exist with them because he is so bond to God. When things start to matter to him is when he is at conflict.

Another differentiating factor of Fleabag’s Priest from the others is the other characters heavy themes of death and martyrdom. Death is ever looming in the others stories, be that from exposure in the Icelandic valleys, alcoholism or stomach cancer (which Pastor Toller and the priest from Diary of a Country Priesst both have in common). Christianity is obsessed with martyrdom, to die for God is seen as the highest achievement. Saints, once people, become symbols. To become a godly man, one must forgo their human interests. To sacrifice ones self. So in a way, The Priest from Fleabag also commits to an act of martyrdom, giving up life as a person to be a man of God. Pastor Toller at the end of First Reformed, rejects martyrdom for humanity, embracing the woman he’s become attached to. He chooses to act on human desire and thus forsaking God. Lucas in Godland was simply playing a part he did not believe in, finding much more solace in people, whether his relationships were friendly or hostile. He became too human so when he is killed at the end, he dies as a man. The priest from Diary of a Country Priest is the most tragic, it seems his stomach cancer stems from where he grew up, having similar symptoms to a childhood friend. Could it be more symbolic of a history of abuse? The priest’s timidness and alcoholism lends to this theory. I wouldn’t say he is a martyr, more that his death was an act of mercy from a Christian God. That he was too weary a soul, beaten down, and only death is solace from the world.

This interest in self-sacrifice, means any priest character is likely going to die. Because much of religion is to answer the question “What happens after we die?” It is only reasonable that these characters would deal with so much of it. The Jesuits in Silence (2016, directed by Martin Scorsese), have death used against them, being refused death themselves as punishment for what is viewed as hubris (and as the audience we can make that judgement too) and instead have other Christians killed in their stead for not forsaking Christ. Father James in Calvary (2014, directed by John Michael McDonagh) is shot by a man who had been abused by a Priest, a kind of sins of the father become the sins of the son sort of thing. In The Exorcist (1973, directed by William Friedkin), Father Karras, regaining his faith which is strong enough to withhold the demon inside just long enough for him to throw himself out a window. All these men were demanded sacrifice but not in the way they’d been promised, which could be a test of faith. Or bad luck.

Our interest as the audience is to see those with clear rules be as conflicted as the everyday person. Maybe to unpack some religious trauma. No matter how clear cut the line is, we will always waiver over it, unsure if this is where the line even should be. That institutions can never be perfect and that ignoring ones own needs can be catastrophic. The priest character asks how can we be good people when asked to remove ourselves from them? To be objective and just, the angel and devil on your shoulder. The whole issue of priesthood is being human. Does one have to give up their humanity to be godly?

To be with God is to be alone with oneself. The rest is ashes.

Thank you for reading,

Enya x

Films/TV mentioned:

Godland (2022, directed by Hlynur Pálmason, written by Hlynur Pálmason)

First Reformed (2017, directed by Paul Schrader, written by Paul Schrader)

Diary of a Country Priest (1951, directed by Robert Bresson, written by Robert Bresson)

Fleabag (TV show) (2016-2019, directed by, written by Phoebe Waller Bridge)

Silence (2016, directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Jay Cocks)

Calvary (2014, directed by John Michael McDonagh, written by John Michael McDonagh)

The Exorcist (1973, directed by William Friedkin, written by William Peter Blatty)

Corpus Christ (2019, directed by Jan Komasa, written by Mateusz Pacewicz)