# Apostle, The (1997)

### reviewed by
Cheng-Jih Chen

The last book I finished is something discussing society's reactions to apocalypse and millennium. In particular, a good part of it is about how evangelical Christianity is shaped by the idea of Christ's imminent return: there's the various taxa of Biblical literalism, including Pentacostalism, Seventh Day Adventism, and so on, and this odd division between the usual fundamentalist Protestantism and the more "charismatic" kind, which allows for such miracles as speaking in tongues and physical manifestations of the Holy Ghost such as faith healing. (Yes, it's research on apocalyptic cults that I'm into right now.)

So I took this odd ball framework for thinking about things into the movie theater to see "The Apostle". Did it help any? I'm not sure.

After reading that book, you can see some of the beliefs that motivate Duvall's character. The "Great Commission" of evangelical Christianity is the spreading of the Gospel to the four corners of the world. That God's word is heard in every land is one of the conditions for the End Times, a necessary event for the Apocalypse and Millennium. And, in the film, the Apostle's life's work is the spreading of the word, and the establishment of churches where there were none. This evangelism pervades the entire film, from the Duvall character, Sonny, as a child listening bored to a preacher to the first scene with Duvall attempting to convert the near comatose victims of a car wreck to the main act of the film, the building of a church in a small bayou town. This evangelism would be expected in any film that dealt honestly with Bible Belt Christianity. Note that Duvall is terrific as a preacher, absolutely believable. I don't know what his religious background is, but the character of Sonny the Evangelist comes to life in this film.

I'm not sure what this movie is "about" thematically. (Arguably, there are many themes, and I'm being silly trying to pin down one.) There's one theme of rebirth and redemption -- Sonny attempts to leave his past behind -- and I think this is what the TV ads and movie theater previews focus on. Sonny has committed past crimes, and has tried to atone for them by building a new church. But this doesn't work for me: he's already a preacher, he's already built churches, and the evangelism that forms the core of his life is unchanged. He's God's servant, whether settled in Texas, or scratching out a new life in Louisiana.

There perhaps is the idea of the dichotomy of the awful, messy day-to-day world, in which Sonny has to worry about church politics, adultery, and, yes, murder, and the unambiguous spiritual world. He tries to escape one into another. But this doesn't convince me: his evangelical style is unchanged, and to a large part his spiritual world dominates his material world.

More credibly is the portrait of a flawed man doing good work. This theme may be a return to basics, or at least the basics of fundamentalist belief: we're all sinners, and we try to do what we can in this world, in the time allowed to us. Further, even though we're sinners, we can do good things. And so we have Sonny, never quite escaping the problems of the day-to-day world, say, jealousy at the sight of Miranda Richardson having lunch with her ex-husband, but also never quite failing to do good things, in particular the church he builds in the bayou.

And I think the idea of limited time animates the film. We all know Sonny's on the run, and that he expects the law to catch up with him eventually. We understand his presence in the church he builds is provisional and temporary. And so, we have his eagerness to get things done, to do good work: he wants to build an orphanage as soon as possible, even though his co-minister wants to take it one day at a time. And, perhaps the connection being entirely in my own mind, I have to think of the book I'd read, and the description of evangelical Christianity living in the shadow of the End Times: can I assume that the film touches on this idea also, that everything is provisional?

Anyway, a couple bang-bang notes: the church is built next to a graveyard. This is perhaps unremarkable, but every panning shot of the church shows these graves. I'll argue that the small cemetery serves the same purpose as the skull in still life paintings -- all the delicious looking fruit (if the artist is any good) is just temporary, and we're all mortal, and the skull reminds us of this.

I'm used to Billy Bob Thornton having really furrowed brows, but then I only remember him from "Sling Blade". I've seen other films with him, but don't really recall him in them ("One False Move" is not a bad film, though).

The film should be a reminder that our bicoastal perception of fundamentalist Christianity is perhaps incomplete. Living relatively secular lives, as we do, we tend to see the fundies more as abortion protesters and gay bashers. We perhaps forget that, say, the civil rights movement (and Abolition for that matter) was originally spearheaded by evangelicals. We may perhaps also throw in the liberation theology of Latin American Catholics in the face of military governments. The complete picture has good parts and bad parts.

    Oh, yes, thumbs up on the movie.

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