I have always kept my distance from this subject as the devil keeps away from holy water, but after the Church decided to share its conclusions and voice its opinion on the matter, I have finally been converted and now feel safe in illustrating the obvious.
What I won’t do, however, is pronounce a clear and conclusive verdict on the authenticity of the phenomena – I’ll still keep my distance from any judging, leaving that to the intelligent reader, and limit myself to pointing out the most obvious. What I will do instead, is analyse two videos, available for all to see on the internet, and walk through the ordeal, trudging step by step through this tragicomedy of abysmal acting that would make the worst B-movie shine in comparison.
Let’s start with Thorn coming out from Angelik’s mouth – I must say I dislike the title: it’s as prosaic a title as they come. It lacks that punch, that attention-grabbing oomph; some creativity would definitely have been welcome, though I doubt it would have saved the short film from the evil clutches of the inferior acting. Even with a catchier title, like, say, The Thorn King, or Thorn between Good and Evil, or perhaps Evil: A Thorn in One’s Mouth, even with such snappy titles announcing the featurette, the amateurish acting wouldn’t have been redeemed. Not that the script is that awful: one can clearly see that the idea behind the production was genius. Unfortunately, the performance is below par, feels contrived and is entirely unbelievable. So let’s take a look at this short docudrama (or docufiction, depending on where you stand). Spoilers ahead!
Set in the charming Maltese countryside, the film opens with a shot of an expectant crowd as our protagonist enters the scene from behind a rubble wall. It’s not a bad start, and I must commend the creative use of the shaky cam to add a sense of thrilling reality. The chorus rises then fades into silence as the procession comes to a halt while the star takes a breather, clearly implying that he’s just come from an exhausting journey [perhaps a prequel is in the making?]. After a brief moment of silence, as Angelik removes his footwear – pure cinema here: no dialogue, no soundtrack, just moving pictures to convey the artistic message – the march uphill starts again, with the main character crossing through the extras – a clear nod to Moses’ parting of the sea.
This is where the action truly starts. The entourage stops for a second time, as Angelik’s mouth is inspected [his tongue movement is clearly a nod to the infamous scene in The Exorcist]. At this point, Angelik feels something in his mouth. Alas, this is where the action starts feeling contrived. The acting is very rigid: Angelik puts his hand to his cheek but it feels all very artificial: there is no pathos and it somehow feels… fake. The inspector puts a tissue to Angelik’s lips and produces a thorn, which she holds up in the air and shows to the credulous gathering [Eisenstein’s influence is felt here through the powerful yet silent, evoking scenes]. The special effects are acceptable, and the crowd’s reaction feels genuine, but Angelik is unfortunately overacting here, ruining an otherwise powerful scene. It just doesn’t feel real.
The chorus as the congregation marches uphill is remarkably harmonious and atmospheric, and strikes a nice balance between musicality and reality.
The last scene is powerful, with Angelik kneeling in front of a crucifix, against a blue backdrop [undoubtedly a reference to blue screen technique – pure cinematic genius which may actually harbour a hidden message], and with a camera man coming into frame, giving the whole thing a nice, realistic found footage feel.
The sequel sports a better title: Apparition cont on 18/07/07. Angelik attacked by the Devil [in a previous episode our hero was attacked by no less than 10 devils], but that doesn’t save it from the even worse acting. As usual with sequels, these tend to be a little over the top, and stretching the imagination of the audience to its limits, not to mention testing one’s suspension of disbelief. This one is no different and certainly jumps the shark.
The action starts off immediately with a medium-shot of the main actor, who is wearing the same outfit; the wardrobe selection here is a conscious cinematic choice meant to convey continuity: it’s a different episode, but the story, the place and the characters are the same. That may not be obvious for the average cinemagoer, but what should become palpably clear to anyone watching is that the writing department must have run dry of creativity: this offering is almost a copy of the previous ones and presents little novelty.
The leading man walks around in a deep trance, religiously followed by his disciples in what appears to be a reverse procession [the director is going back to the roots, revisiting the earlier occurrences – one must applaud this ingenious expedient]. Angelik makes a U-turn (perhaps signifying the star’s brief turning away from God and religion after being led by the Devil, and then his prodigal return, in an almost Dantesque fashion, though admittedly, this is only my interpretation). Once again, he kneels in front of the crucifix in a scene mirroring the ending of the pre-existing work, seemingly to pick up where we left off, and further establishing that continuity we spoke about earlier. Only this time, the chorus is immediately shushed with a wave, serving as a break from the past by clearly marking this as a new and therefore different episode despite it being more of the same.
Our protagonist is clearly distraught as he washes himself with dirt – the symbolism here is poignant and profound. He leans further and in prostration assumes what resembles the posture adopted during Islamic praying. He then pulls his weight up to assume a kneeling position – the star must have trained vigorously in preparation for this exercising feat.
After a brief discourse with the crucifix [a nod to great classics Don Camillo and Marcelino, pan y vino], Angelik slips his sandals on – in antithesis to the previous work – and finally gets up to start his descent down the small incline with the help of his cane and the support of his faithful followers, as the chorus does eventually enter [again, the theme of continuity] with a wonderful rendition of a well-known religious song.
We are now nearing the climax. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a complete disappointment as the attack promised in the title is in the end no more than a clearly rehearsed balancing act: as Angelik begins his descent one can easily observe that he switches the cane to the other hand in preparation for this number, but despite the concealing frame of the shot we can still notice the cane being used as support to break what is clearly a planned fall. Such stunts should either be left to professional stuntmen or practised at length to ensure they do not break the audience’s suspension of disbelief.
The protagonist lies on the floor for a while, taking a much-needed breather, and then is helped up as the congregation breaks into prayer and then song. The blackened Angelik rises to his feet again (possibly symbolising the rise of the black man in his push for the abolition of slavery, and perhaps also a cinematic reference to Amistad) and is escorted offstage. The chorus is hushed, indicating the end of the film, as one of the helpers – who turns out to be Angelik’s wife – conveys the Madonna’s gratitude in the final scene. It seems the scriptwriter became lazy at this point, as the message is a cut and paste from similar messages often given at public events: “the Madonna told me to thank you for coming”, says the assistant very matter-of-factly; compare this with the “thank you for attending” or the “we would like to thank you for your participation” end-of-event speeches given at concerts, shows and other for-profit social gatherings.
One can see that the actors have developed their artistic skills, at times displaying a solid performance, but the production falls far short of a Golden Bear.
We don’t get to see any actual devils in the video either, and whereas this may have been a conscious choice, in the artistic tradition of subtle suggestion through cinematic language rather than visual spoon feeding, I suspect it had more to do with funding: the low budget simply did not permit for special effects.
The Church came out with its own critique at the beginning of this year, and I welcome the stand it took and the courage it exhibited in coming out in the open by declaring its position. I would also like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that religious institutions have a right and duty to speak about public matters and can indeed be instrumental in ensuring justice in the world. It’s quite common for the church to contribute in this manner: in Italy for instance, the Catholic Church has played an important role in the fight against organised crime through civil society organisations like Libera, which quickly became one of the most popular anti-mafia movements. Don Maurizio Patriciello has also made a name for himself by speaking against the Camorra’s “waste business” and illegal dumping of toxic material, and even testified to the European Parliament a year ago. In Malta, we have our own “Don” and activist priest. Dubbed “eco-priest” by the press, Dun Anġ Seychell has defended the environment on more than one occasion, and this is all well and good. One need not subscribe to a faith or adhere to any organised religion in order to recognise the fact that religious institutions and religious figures are entitled to their viewpoint as anybody else.
This article was partly inspired by Spotlight – a critically acclaimed and Academy Award winning film about investigative journalism – and the importance of digging deeper: we may not be able to retrieve a thorn from someone’s mouth, but we may end up extracting the truth, and that may well happen to be a thorn in someone’s side.
Kenneth Charles Curmi