In the Catholic country of The Republic of Italy, very few people actually read the Bible. Most people get to know Jesus through the narration of the clergy. That's why this "faithful to the original" film was so shocking when it came out--because it featured a new and original Jesus.
Pasolini, a Marxist atheist who has been labelled as a "depraved", won unanimous praise from people of different positions when the film came out. He "reduced" Jesus as a revolutionary standing with the common people on the barren scorched earth. The real faces of a large number of non-professional actors in the film, including the speechless Joseph and Maria (an elderly Maria, played by the director's own mother), are touchingly simple. Jesus' long speeches, combined with the fervent and alienated eyes of the actors, are very convincing. Pasolini does not remove the sanctity and mystery of Jesus from a realistic point of view, but focuses on the sensibility of Jesus, which coexists with various miracles, and becomes an idealized poem to save the destitute. What Solini recognizes: At the deepest level, Marxism and the divinity of Christ have an inherent commonality.
Mark is too crude, John too mystical, Luke too sentimental, too bourgeois. In Pasolini's eyes, Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo is the only Gospel with a national-popular epic quality, which his film successfully conveys. Compared with the American films "Superstar of All Ages" and "The Last Temptation of Christ", which secularized Jesus in the future, the pure images of this film are closer to the style of national documentaries. From this, it can be seen that The Republic of Italy film has transformed from neo-realism. process, and Bassolini's unique poetic essence. Even stripped of any ideology, it's still a stunningly beautiful image.
