AFI Fest Review: Stations of the Cross

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.    1 Corinthians 13:11

It is a burden to be a person of faith.  Religious teachers may say otherwise - that by having faith and keeping one's eyes on eternity, the trials of life become easier to bear - but walking by the guidelines of a text is difficult, and the quest for righteousness is in vain.  But the be a person if faith is also a testament to one's character: the pursuit of holiness is noble, even when the extreme focus is to the detriment of oneself and others.

Dietrich Bruggermann's Stations of the Cross is a theatrical examination of the dangers of a child's faith, and the toll it takes to follow in the footsteps of Christ.  Fourteen year-old Maria (Lea van Acken) and her family are part of a fundamentalist Catholic church that takes radical stances on secular music, inter-gender relatioships, and dancing.  Maria and her fellow confirmees - the film opens with the children attending their last class before confirmation - are encouraged to be warriors of the church, and to denounce sin wherever and whenever they find it.  As the class files out and Maria stays behind, the burden is already evident.

Bruggermann's film is formally daring.  Each Station of the Cross is listed on a black screen, then plays out in the life of Maria.  There are fourteen stations, and thus fourteen scenes, each composed of a single shot.  The camera rarely moves, creating cramped stages on which the action unfolds, the characters carefully moving (or not) within it.  The rigid frame fits Maria's internal struggle to follow her religion's strict teachings; it's all too easy to go astray, to walk out of the frame into the unbelieving world beyond.

In Maria's gaunt form, we see the toll it takes to be of a focused spiritual mind.  Though not yet confirmed, she is expected to live as an adult, to be fully accountable for her missteps and sins, even those she isn't sure if she committed (as we see in a gripping confession scene).  Van Acken is an incredible young actress; she articulates the desire to live a holy life with utter adolescent conviction without losing the innocence her character is expected to have left behind.  There is such joy in Maria's sorrow, such victory as she loses the remnants of a normal childhood.  It's an astounding turn.

Those familiar with what happened to Jesus (spoiler alert: things don't go well for him) will know to expect some tragic turns, but the film isn't a blanket indictment of religion or Christian faith.  Instead, it warns us, like the old song, to teach our children well; they are so easily influenced, even easily brainwashed.  The latter seems to be at work in Maria's case.  Many roads lead to Rome, says a certain salesman in the film's penultimate scene.  There are different paths to holiness, and it's a shame to close any of them off when children are still finding their feet, wondering which direction to run.  Why burden them from birth with such a heavy cross to carry?