Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Rooney Mara, Joaquin Pheonix, Chiwetel Ejiofer, Tahar Rahim, Ariane Labad, Denis Menochet, Lubna Azabal, Tcheky Karyo, Charles Babalola, Wawfeek Barhom, Ryan Corr, Uri Gavriel, Shira Haas, Tsahi Haevi, Michael Moshonov, David Schofield, Irit Sheleg, Jules Sitruk, Zohar Shtrauss, Lior Raz, Hadas Yaron, Roy Assaf, Valentina Carelutti.

Written history is the by-product of agenda, especially when someone’s legal observance is shouted down by a system that wants to subjugate and put the masses into place. Tell someone enough times that they don’t matter, exclude them, or worse, paint them in the tones of the aggressor, the liar, or the one whose words are based on the derogatory, then history is not only celebrated by the winner, it is a falsehood designed to keep everyone in their place.

There are those to whom history has been shameful to, the certain elements of the patriarch system all-consuming in their desire to show women wholly in a bad light, revere the mother but that woman who drives on the man, shame her they cry, her story is against the word we wish to convey. It is a sickening thought even if you have the slightest or no interest in religion, that a council of men can tarnish the name of Mary Magdalene to the point where for the last two thousand years she has been thought of as nothing more than a prostitute, not as she should be, a revered member of the apostles who spread the word of Christ.

Mary Magdalene seeks to redress that near act of treachery, and if it were film that really took on the establishment and tainted views then it would be up there with the likes of Cecil B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments or Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth which was to make a star out of Robert Powell. Instead what comes across in this unfortunately laborious and stilted film is the sense of dull routine, that this important figure in history has been given her due reverence and apology from the Church, but still they could do nothing to give it a sense of greatness, that this story, trades too much on the humble and not on the strength deserved.

Of course, it could be argued that Mary Magdalene’s strength lay in her compassion, but even that is not properly explored, the terror of a possible forced marriage being the catalyst of her salvation, the ability to take on the male preserve of the apostles, given her status and apology from the Pope, you might wonder why the makers of the film didn’t give the film more impetus, more weight.

A film that truly should have done so much more, but one that perhaps those with history in their veins will see as one to take on to a different level in the future.

Ian D. Hall