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Paul Schrader’s strange, yet effective, movie on faith and the climate crisis will create lots of debate.
By Alberto Sclaverano
Among the several movies around the theme of climate change and the climate crisis, the most unique and strange is probably Paul Schrader’s First Reformed (2017). After premiering at the 74th Venice International Film Festival in August 2017, it was released in the USA in March 2018 and then distributed worldwide.
Schrader is no stranger to controversial topics or bold subject choices. After all, he is the screenwriter of Martin Scorsese’s masterpieces Taxi Driver (1976) and Raging Bull (1980) and the director of American Gigolo (1980). Nor is Schrader new to religious-related themes, even if always covered with a complex and controversial approach.
In 1988 he adapted The Last Temptation of Christ (from Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel) for Scorsese, and then directed a prequel to the classical horror film The Exorcist (1973) so weird and bizarre that the producers were forced to reshoot it in a most moviegoers-friendly way (Exorcist: The Beginning, 2004, while Schrader’s original version was finally released in 2005 as Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist).
Mary, the Archangel and the climate crisis
In First Reformed Reverend Ernst Toller (played by Ethan Hawke), pastor at the First Reformed of Snowbridge (located in New York City), lived through a faith crisis, made worse by the death of his son in the Iraq War. He met Mary (Amanda Seyfried) and her husband Micheal (Philip Ettinger). A possible reference to the Virgin Mary and Saint Michael the Archangel, considering Schrader’s interest in theological-related issues, cannot be excluded.
Micheal is a radical environmentalist, and after discovering that Mary is pregnant, he tries to convince her to have an abortion. The reason, that he repeats to Reverend Toller, is that he does not want to force the child to grow up in a world that will be devastated by the climate crisis, and perhaps made unlivable. Toller at the beginning tries to persuade Micheal to change his idea, but the more he talks with him, the more he finds himself persuaded by his radical approach to the environmental crisis.
While in the debate on abortion, the two men are on opposite sides, Toller starts to understand that Micheal’s concern for the environment perfectly sides with his moral and religious beliefs. The situation becomes even more complicated when Micheal begins to prepare actual acts of sabotage and even terrorism. From this point, the plot will become even more convoluted and tragic, as often is the case with Schrader’s stories.
Part psychological thriller, part religious based-drama, Forst Reformed asks the spectator many unconfirmable questions, and this is true for both believers and non-believers. The movie often invites us to take the reflection on the consequences of the climate crisis to the extreme and presents characters who bear the brunt of past emotional traumas and sufferings.
It is not an easy type of film, but, as often happens with Schrader’s movies, it poses deeply ethical and philosophical questions. It also helps us to understand how deep and ramified are the consequences of the climate crisis, to the point that even the spiritual and theological dimensions can be involved. If we think of the relevance given to this subject by Pope Francis himself (as written also in the 2015 encyclical Laudato si'), we can understand how complex is the debate. Movies like First Reformed, although not always easy to watch, can make an important contribution to the debate.
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