Review of Calvary (2014)

John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary announces itself with a shot that is perfect. It makes itself quietly evident to us, and before it is over we know we are going to be watching a masterpiece. It is a fixed camera shot of Father James Lavelle, played by Brendan Gleeson, in a confession booth, hearing that he is going to die. He is looking down, and then he looks up; his face is marked by an impenetrable and palpable sadness that he will carry for the rest of the film. It leaks out of his eyes, and emanates from his every gesture. He is a man for whom life has run out of surprises. When the man who is confessing to him announces that “I first tasted semen when I was seven years old”, he shoots back, quick as a flash “that’s quite the opening line”. Written down, this might seem like he is callous, but as we come to know, he is not. He is a very good man.  Flawed, but good, and his humour is a defence against the numerous wrongs in life which have stacked themselves up against him. The man then tells James that he was abused systematically by a priest over a number of years, and that he is going to kill James in one week. Not because James was the abuser, but in seeing revenge as futile, he instead observes that “killing a good priest… that’s a shock.” The camera remains fixed on James’ face. We see how this news impacts him, and we see that he is simply too tired to be impacted at all. He takes what he is told on board, contemplates it, accepts it. He looks sad, but as we have noted, he looked sad before.

The film unspools slowly from this point, counting down the days. It methodically views his actions and his life, and it finallt forms a character study that can claim to be whole. Most of the film consists of James quietly going about his day-to-day business as a priest. For example, early on in the film he goes to a woman called Veronica (Orla O’Rourke), who he notes has been wearing sunglasses. She has been beaten, although she doesn’t seem too fazed; as James also notes, she is a woman who has many lovers. Nevertheless, James then goes about the island, quietly inquiring as to who did it, with the intent of telling them to stop. He sees this as little more than his duty. These scenes are a good representative of the film as a whole; quiet, meditative, and thoughtful.

Indeed, the film has a certain tranquil serenity, and a purity, which eventually evolves into pure and unbridled sadness, as it quietly observes the affairs of James Lavelle. We see that his daughter Fiona (Kelly Reilly), having just been released from hospital after a suicide attempt, has come to stay with him for a short while. We learn that their mother died, and that this was probably what spurred James on to become a priest. This impacted Fiona deeply, as she felt that she had lost two parents as opposed to one. In one of the many heartrending sequences in the film, Fiona states these feelings to James in beautifully plain terms. He looks at her, his eyes well up. He hugs her. Kisses her head. Holds her close to him.

We may also observe the people on the island. They are a truly horrible lot of people, and one may very well question the fact of how this many utter bastards came to be in one place. Dylan Moran plays an alcoholic millionaire called Michael Fitzgerald, abandoned by his wife and children, and he announces himself by urinating on a famous painting. Chris O’Dowd plays Jack Brennan, a butcher with a callous disregard for the feelings of anyone he is around. Domnhall Gleeson, who conveyed such integrity in Richard Curtis’ “About Time” here has a brief scene as a killer and rapist of young girls. There are more; something struck me as odd about the way in which they were written. After the film was finished, my girlfriend observed that each person we know on the island could represent one of the deadly sins. Along with the seven-day structure, this could very well fit. There is also arguably a case to be made that James is already living in hell. The truth is, I do not know, and such theories are for others to piece together. But I do agree that the people on the island represent circumstances which James tries to overcome, and has probably had to overcome for some time; burdens which he rises above with dignity and grace.

The film is also shot with a classical formality which allows us to observe the actions in a serene, unobtrusive way. There is a lot of bold colours, a lot of white and black in this film, and lots of cutaways to people surfing in the sea and the beautiful Irish landscape. McDonagh creates a peculiar sense of place in this film, in which shots vary in their composition; in some moments, he goes for symmetry. In others, he goes for placing the object at the corner of the screen. Sometimes he pivots, pans, or swivels, and on a number of occasions he keeps the camera still. The writing is subtle, effective, and makes its points quietly without making a point of them. It quietly pries open the themes of racism, sex, and sin. As James states near the end “there’s too much talk of sin. Nobody talks much about virtue.” This is a virtuous film.

The film also asks big questions about the nature of complicity of the abuse in the Catholic Church. It carries with it a sense of hurt, and pain, for the atrocities committed, but it also knows that violence should not beget violence. It is a pacifistic film that views violence as what it is; horrible. One fearless moment sees James state his detachment from the abuses that have been enacted in the church. Not because he does not think they are awful, but, perhaps, because they are too awful.

This marks one of James’ characteristics; sobering honesty. Another moment sees James accused of being judgemental, and before he can think he shoots back “yes, I am. But I try not to be.” We learn he has a problem with alcohol, and an actual one, not a contrivance added to give the film “depth”, whatever that means. We also learn that his priesthood is probably also him striving for forgiveness for his past mistakes. Yet we come to love him, and as the film quietly puts its pieces in place, we realise that how well we have come to know James, how completely. We know where he came from, who he is, where is going. He may not be perfect, and in one scene we tenderly observe how brutal he is capable of being, but we forgive him for he is on the proper path.

Thinking back over the film, and its portrayal of James’ character and human behaviour in general, I am only now realising how deeply and profoundly this film has touched me. It is a truly sad film, one of the saddest and most devastating I have seen, containing a number of scenes which hit me like a sledgehammer in their lack of sentiment and ruthless, unblinking honesty. The central performance from Brendan Gleeson is flawless in its observation. It is a film pitched at the highest level of purpose, and I would venture to suggest that anybody with any respect for the medium of film will take this into account when considering its capabilities. It has an unblinking eye for the nuances of human behaviour, and uses those to devastating and heart-wrenching ends. It inspires conversation, thought, and debate. It is a film that is as honest about religion, faith, and human nature as Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.

Ultimately, Calvary comes to represent an attempt to convey the sum total of the worth of a human life, and it succeeds, and I wept, and wept.