Corpus Christi (2019)
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Corpus Christi Movie Review
Corpus Christi is a 2019 Polish drama film directed by Jan Komasa and starring Bartosz Bielenia. It’s such a good, worthy Oscar nominee.
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“To forgive doesn’t mean to forget“
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A reformed criminal is prevented from applying to the seminary after his release, so he dresses as a priest and ministers a small town parish. Setting that small qualm with the boy mistakenly becoming a priest in such an unrealistic fashion aside, I really enjoyed this story. I found it intriguing, perfect for a drama film and at the end of the day quite deep too.
It explores faith very well, and how even those who are not seemingly good fits for a priest can be fine in that position. That was a very interesting take on this subject matter, and in particular some scenes were immensely emotional, especially the ones where the protagonist got to talk to one of the other guys from the youth detention center.
The standout is Bartosz Bielenia. The movie has to be seen for his performance, and the character who is complex, very well realized and following his inner thoughts and dilemmas made for a very introspective watch. But Bartosz gave such a stupendous performance for a relative newcomer. He sold the high emotion so well, and he was genuinely believable as both a criminal and a priest. This is a great new talent who will hopefully get more work soon.
Corpus Christi is immensely slow, that it the biggest problem I’ve had with it. Its decidedly slower, leisurely pace definitely fitted the aforementioned introspective nature to the movie, but still the various speeches given at the parish were overlong and frankly boring. I would have personally cut some of those, and definitely the editing isn’t its strongest suit.
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But the movie is well shot, quite well directed by Jan Komasa and featuring fantastic dialogue as it explores its themes of faith, redemption and second opportunities so well. In particular, the second part is quite engaging and powerful. So, the movie being Oscar nominated in the stacked foreign category was quite deserved when all is said and done. I hadn’t expected it to be this good, but it was a really pleasant surprise.
Corpus Christi certainly is decidedly slower in pace, but that fitted its highly introspective nature quite well. It deals with faith and redemption through strong dialogue and some very emotional sequences. It’s thus a pretty strong, worthy Oscar nominee that hugely benefits from Bartosz Bielenia’s powerhouse, revelatory performance.
