The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964, Italy (9.0*)
Pasolini's intention was to film the gospel verbatim, without Hollywood scripting, without blue-eyed, blond Jesus actors - his actor was a Spanish student, Enrique Irazoqui, who'd never made a film - this works much better than using an established actor. Compare this to the U.S. films that used Max Von Sydow and Jeffrey Hunter (both blond and blue-eyed!)

The story is totally unembellished, so it appears fragmented and fast-paced. The extras are all Mediterraneans, so they look authenic for once. The settings are very sparse, primitive, and poor. Roger Ebert said "it looks like a documentarian with a low budget followed Jesus around", and gave it 5*'s, his top rating. It's like NO other religious film I've seen: grainy, gritty, realistic, almost manic and fanatical in places.

Make sure you view the subtitled, black and white original version. There's an awful dubbed version, and even a colorized version out there. The disk I rented had the original, and the colorized/dubbed one both - they managed to ruin it both ways in one version.

#103 on our "Top Ranked 1000" films compiled from internet polls

Pasolini was murdered in Italy in 1975 after making a dozen films, most say by the neo-fascist right wing. He had just completed "Salo", based on the Marquis de Sade.