The Stations of the Cross – Movie Review

Director: Dietrich Brüggemann
Writers: Anna Brüggemann, Anna Brüggemann, Dietrich Brüggemann
Stars: Lucie Aron, Anna Brüggemann, Michael Kamp

The title of each of the fourteen stations of the Cross preface each of the sections of this tightly controlled schematic film. The scheme is as rigid as the doctrinaire, unbending rigour of Roman Catholicism as expounded by believers of the one true faith who did not accept the changes brought about by the deeds of Pope John 23rd as expressed in the second Vatican Council. The first sequence is of a young priest in his clerical garb preparing a small group of girls and boys for confirmation. His dislike of Vatican 2 is expressed with a confident fervour. One of the group, Maria (Lea van Acken), answers the questions he poses with greater depth and conviction than the others. It is her Via Dolorosa which will be followed.

In the second sequence, she walks alone in rolling Bavarian country side, and is joined by the family au pair as she struggles with her conscience and then by her parents and her two younger siblings. It is not a joyous family; the Mother (Franziska Weisz) is a disciplinarian of the unreconstructed old school, the second Vatican council has only strengthened her dogmatism and she constantly reproves her family particularly Maria. She is a frightening creation made more so that she does not have a name! Maria shows some signs of the normal emotions that you would expect of a healthy female adolescent which inevitably places her in conflict with her Mother’s doctrinaire certainties. Maria’s moral and physical decline is what the film relates as her conflicted life treads agonisingly along its troubled way.

Franziska Weisz as the Mother creates a great cinematic female monster. A very different acting tour de force is that of Lea van Acken as she battles with her innermost feelings and the moral certainties which she is being served. These two outstanding but very different performances coupled with very finely executed individual scenes by various individuals such as the young school boy friend of Maria, her gym teacher, the young priest and a doctor make this a film which is both finely conceived and executed.

The content of the film will not appeal to many people who have moved their practices in line with the second Vatican Council but that should not deter a visit to see this movie which has a cold, controlled style to it which makes it arresting.

Review by Frank L