Film Comment: Ancient Relic

The general consensus of the internet discussion about Ancient Relic (original title: Das Jesus Video), a German language made for television movie, is that it is rather lackluster and mundane.  The film will nevr win any awards.  It is a competent but obviously low-budget production.

Basically, the plot of Ancient Relic is this: an archeological crew in Israel discovers a previously unknown 2000 year old burial chamber containing a skeleton.  Nothing unusual there.  Then they notice that some of the skeleton’s teeth have modern amalgam fillings.  Then they notice the titanium rod and screws in the leg.  Then they notice the camcorder instruction manual.  Things really heat up when they find the word “Jesus” handwritten on the manual.  This would indicate that a time traveler may have made a videotape of Jesus.

Nefarious types suddenly appear and everyone begins trying to capture the young graduate student who discovered the tomb.  Everyone is convinced that he knows more than he actually does. Bullets fly, chases ensue, people are murdered, and the movie becomes a violent political chase thriller.  The persons pursuing the student are revealed to be associated with the Roman Catholic Church.

In case you think you might actually want to view this film, be aware that this next section contains SPOILERS.

A company owned by the ruthless man who has financed all the mayhem just happens to have also financed time travel research.  When the camcorder itself is actually found, the recording reveals that the graduate student is the time traveler.  The recording also reveals the dessicated corpse of a bearded man, presumed to be Jesus.

The film portrays the Roman Catholic Church as a giant political organization willing to use any means, even murder, to get what it wants.  The film is also a direct denial of the truth of the Resurrection.

On a simple story level, there are numerous plot holes present in this film.  The most glaring question: would a person not be expected to recognize his own handwriting?

Film Comment: The Next One

Adrienne Barbeau portrays a widow who, along with her son, rescues a man named Glenn (Kier Dullea) who washes up on a beach in Greece.  The man does not remember who he is but seems to have extraordinary mystical powers.  He slowly begins to remember his identity.

Glenn is a time travelling alien from a future when everyone is a clone.  In Glenn’s time, everyone is equal and all are perfect, there is no sin or evil.  Glenn’s brother arrived on Earth two thousand years before!  In the original version of this 1984 film, the final reveal comes when Glenn recognizes his brother, Jesus, hanging on the cross in a church’s stained glass window.

Down through the centuries, people have tried repeatedly to make Jesus into someone, anyone, other than who He was.  To some he was an ethical genius, or a prophet, a deranged man, a man possessed by the Cosmic Christ Spirit, a fraud, the leader of a homosexual group, a revolutionary, a rabbi, an Ascended Master, or even a total fiction who never existed.

Adrienne Barbeau has said that the only reason she appeared in The Next One (1984) was to get a free trip to Greece. 

Film Comment: The Spirit of '76

The silly comedic (?) film, The Spirit of ’76 (1991), is almost totally negligible unless you are on a nostalgia trip to the Seventies.   You might wish to see it for its long list of cameo appearances by Tommy Chong, Julie Brown, Devo, Iron Eyes Cody, Don Novello, Carl and Rob Reiner, Moon Unit Zappa, and others.

The thin plot is basically this: three time travelers from 2176 [ Adam 11 (David Cassidy), Chanel 6 (Olivia d’Abo), and Heinz 57 (Geofff Hoyle}] set out for 1776 to recover the long lost history of America.  A malfunction in their time machine sends them to 1976, where they set out to find the meaning of America, not realizing that they have missed their mark by 200 years.

Just like the confused time travelers, we really do not understand what it was like to live in Roman Judea.  The average live span was about 35 years.  The majority of people were illiterate or very close to it.  Most people lived and died in the village in which they were born and did the same work their parents before them had done.  The Romans were a brutal and alien occupying force who could arrest or kill someone for little or no reason.  Though many/most were illiterate it was quite common for the men to have a deep knowledge of Jewish tradition, history, and the scriptures.

The modern student of scripture must realize that we read and see and hear through our modern filters.  When Jesus and the Apostles spoke, their listeners understood what they meant.   Some of their responses make sense only when we understand the historical and cultural environment in which they lived.