The Rite

Friday night was frightening. I saw a film. It was called "The Rite", a film on exorcism based upon Matt Baglio's book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, directed by Mikael Hafstrom, starring that excellent veteran actor Anthony Hopkins (Father Lucas), Collin O'Donoghue ( Michael Kovak),  Alice Braga (Angelina Vargas) and Marta Gastina (  Rosaria) 

As the film opens, we are shown a child onserving from a distance his father doing make-up for various corpses in readiness for funeral at his funeral parlor. He was told by his father never to inquire into the lives of the corpses. Then we are shown him grown up. He was messing around with his friends in a disco. We found out that he did not like the idea of dressing corpses and preparing their bodies for cremation or burial all his life and had deided to join the priesthood because it offered 4 years of free college education. He took the course but when it was time for him to declare his vows and be ordained as a priest, he hesitated. After he sent in a letter of resignation saying that after some serious reflections he felt that he did not have the necesary faith, something happened which changed the course of his life. He was asked to have a talk with Father Matthew who managed to induce in him a mixture of a sense of guilt and a veiled threat that if he opted out, he would have to repay all his educational expenses, about $100,000. After the talk in the evening, Father Matthew stepped on to the kerb still thinking about something or other, perhaps trying to talk further to Michael, did not see a coming car which hit him and which then had to swerve to knock down another passing middle aged cyclist. She was lying on the floor, blood streaming down her face, saw Michael, and pleaded for him to come to give her her last rites and to absolve her from her sins,  her eyes filled with a sense of relief upon seeing him. He had no choice and did so, despite his initial doubts. 

We are next shown Michael crossing the chaotic traffic of the streets of Rome walking towards some august Roman buildings of the Vatican. He had been selected for a course on exorcism there probably because he had shown himself possessing the kind of qualities thought needed for such an unusual role perhaps because he had shown himself brave enough to face with equanimity physical violence, blood and death. He was however still full of doubts about so-called miracles and the existence of the devil which he voiced at the seminar, such doubts being also shared by another lady member of the class, whom we learn later was a journalist, Angelina, assigned to cover the priests training in exorcism. The teacher of the course, Father Xavier,  also discovered his reservations and after class, asked him to meet one Father Lucas, living in a dilapidated house at the outskirts of Rome, introducing him as a very experienced exorcist who knows everything there is to know about devils and how to drive them out of people. With hesitation, he went there and had his first taste of Father Lucas'  exorcism in real life, having to do with a 16 year old  Italian girl Rosaria, who had been raped by her father and was carrying his baby and was showing signs of demon possession. She was shown speaking English although she never learned it. After Father Lucas's excorcism, she coughed out three 5 inch iron nails from her mouth! Her forearm show the same tattoo as as that on that of the last woman he prepared for funeral. 

In the rest of the film we are shown more and more episodes of demon possession and what had to be done to drive out the relevant demons. It appeared that the demon must be asked to declare himself by name, which they invariably do despite strong resistance against so doing apparently because the name of Jesus Christ would somehow cause them intolerable pain.

Rosaria eventually died in her hospital bed of a miscarriage despite Father Lucas' exorcism. Her death seemed to have crushed Father Lucas, who was staying outside of her hospital room all night long just in case the devil returned. He had done everything he knew and still failed. After this, he began to have doubts about his own abilities to fight the devil although he had been doing that with confidence all his life. He was seen in his room with all the portraits, crosses and busts of or other signs of Jesus and Mary upside down and when approached for blessing by a young girl, simply flung her aside and was walking about in a perpetual daze and sitting in the rain, as if he no longer felt anything, like a living corpse. In one of his his saner moment, he asked Michael to get Father Xavier to exorcise himself. Michael tried to contact Father Xavier but was told that he was out of town for a number of days. He had no choice. Michael was forced to do what he observed Father Lucas himself doing. He took up the Bible and a cross and pressed it against the face of Father Lucas and ordered the demon to declare himself, which the devil did, but not after some display of rage, knowledge and power. It was Baal! What he saw with his own eyes had made it impossible for him not to be convinced of the reality of demon possession. As the film ends, we are shown Michael finally clearing up the debris in the courtyard outside of Father Lucas's house, which he had seen I do know how many times before and restoring some kind of order to it. He is last seen hearing a confession of another woman, but as Father Kovak.

It was a very powerful film. Anthony Hopkins's acting was superb, as always. Collin O'Donoghue was not bad as the converted doubting Thomas.  No review of the film would be complete however without paying tribute to the excellent work by the sound engineer. The photography too was good, with plenty of close ups which adds enormously to the emotional impact of the film. A spine chilling Friday night!