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Actor Bielenia as ex-inmate Daniel: "Let everything out!"
Photo: Arsenal
Part of the joke and misery of Catholicism is that it is also in the bones of those who boldly deal with the big and small lies of the practice of faith.
In his gripping film "Corpus Christi", director Jan Komasa shows a village community in which hatred and greed rule and in which the Christian virtue of forgiveness seems to be forgotten.
He presents pious people who look like abandoned chicks when one day they are supposed to do without the church rituals and are asked to pray in silence.
It shows sex between a man in priestly robes and a young woman.
Despite such heretical approaches, Komasa's film is characterized by a godly ardor and aesthetic severity that one almost inevitably has to call Catholic.
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Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) dancing with the village community: hesitant at first, then enthusiastic
Photo: MACH / Arsenal
"Corpus Christi" begins in a juvenile prison that looks like limbo.
The prisoner Daniel, played by the actor Bartosz Bielenia, seems to be able to cope with the murderous pecking order of the prisoners.
He has had himself hitched up as an acolyte by the prison pastor and sings in a surprisingly tender voice.
The priest is progressive and proclaims that God is also present on Prison Bolt Square.
Nevertheless, he has to reject inmate Daniel's career aspirations.
"No seminary will accept a convict," says the cleric.
The film leaves open which crime Daniel, who was beaten with a gaunt, ascetic figure and shining blue eyes, committed.
When he was sent to a sawmill in the Polish province after his release from prison, where he was supposed to work as a worker, he told himself a little lie in the nearby village church - and shortly afterwards he was allowed to replace the sick parish priest for the first time conduct a church service.
Self-chosen martyrdom
At first hesitantly, then enthusiastically, Daniel throws himself into the role of impostor.
He takes confessions from the faithful, gives unconventional short sermons and, with the help of young Marta (Eliza Rycembel), who grew up in the village, researches the details of a horrible car accident.
In an improvised chapel on the street, relatives commemorate their children who were killed in the accident.
“Let everything out!” The hero in the priestly robe asks the mourners once, then you see the villagers shouting, stamping and raising their fists to the sky.
It is the wildest scene in a film that examines, with great calmness and intensity, the ruptures in a community that Daniel is determined to heal.
Whether he fails or wins at his self-chosen martyrdom is left to the judgment of the audience.
"Corpus Christi" made it into the selection for the best international film in the fight for this year's Oscars and is based on the real story of a young Pole who in 2011 pretended to be a priest in a rural community for a few months.
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Daniel and Pinczer (Tomasz Zietek): a cinema experience full of redemption
Photo: Arsenal
Of course, the film can be considered a fairly typical product of Polish art cinema.
"We are deeply buried in this kind of storytelling. We love to present our scars. It drives us and creates identity," says the director Komasa in the press release.
Anyone who opposes the pious mainstream in his country "is branded as a soulless traitor".
The film is really moving less because of its message, but thanks to its wonderfully withdrawn actors and a clear, beautiful and in some scenes harsh and brutal imagery.
"I didn't hurt anyone," the imposter Daniel claims once.
This cannot be said of the film that describes his adventures: "Corpus Christi" is a painful, but also redemption-filled cinema experience.
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