Review: The Da Vinci Code Movie
For a film being marketed with the slogan, “This summer, discover the truth,” The Da Vinci Code is surprisingly uncontroversial. In the original book, our protagonists had been thrust in the midst of a Dark Age style witch-hunt, where powerful forces had been mobilized against them on a global scale. However in the movie adaptation, we lose that overriding sense of danger and lurking menace that had been the main driving thrust in the book.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:57 am
I had sent the following to Daily Pioneer, New Delhi. I thought I ought to share it with HV readers and get feedback on my views:
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‘The Da Vinci Code’ has obviously rattled both the Church and doctrinaire laity in India, as is apparent from feeble attempts observed in the media at treating it as nothing more than a thriller and indulging thereby in futile autosuggestion.
There was no protest about the book elsewhere precisely because its author does not question any one of fundamental Christian beliefs like Christ’s doubtful historicity, immaculate conception, virgin birth, ministry as the prophesied Jewish ‘messiah’, crucifixion or resurrection. Like Martin Luther a few centuries ago, he merely exposes all the skulduggery that has so far passed for ‘organized religion’ [‘In God’s Name’ by David Yallop and ‘The Dark Side of Christian History’ by Helen Ellerby are other must-reads]. Martin Luther challenged the doctrine of papal infallibility and the selling of indulgences leading to the Reformation without touching basic articles of faith. In fact, evidence suggests that he was ferociously intolerant of the faith of pagans. Brown, in similar vein, apparently wants the world to know why and how various ‘Gnostic’ doctrines, which accorded a rightful status of parity to the female element at the same time heavily debunking the doctrine of apostolic succession, were so ruthlessly suppressed for two thousand years – a process we sadly suffer even in the ‘age of reason’!
Perhaps, the groups who are protesting against the film are not fully, if at all, aware of the dire straits in which their ‘mother church’ finds itself in the countries of its birth - a reason for no protests and no calls for a ban there. The lay Christian is only nominally so, and could hardly be bothered about the consequences for the Church of a film made on a best-seller that exposes its dark deeds so lucidly.
But religio-politico-commercial stakes for a Church beleaguered by pronounced lackadaisical interest in Christianity, dwindling church attendances and ever-increasing moral disrepute [see http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/no_trial_no_pun.html], are much too high to be as fleetingly dismissed as laity would wish. Isn’t the fact that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone was officially appointed by the Vatican to debunk Brown’s claims [see http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1438297,00.html] sufficient evidence that the Church takes the issue far more seriously? And, given the obvious ignorance of Christians in India about the mainly ‘non-spiritual’ activities of their Church [see Yallop, supra], how do we know for certain that these ‘protests’ haven’t actually been engineered by the clergy?
At the end of the day, one wonders whether it is faith in Christ or faith in the spending ability of the ‘poor’ Church that has an upper hand in India!
Bhalchandrarao C. Patwardhan