Celui qui doit mourir

I saw HE WHO MUST DIE in Edinburgh, Scotland (1957). No film relating to Jesus Christ, before or since, has had such an emotional/spiritual impact on me. Its imaginative plot (preparations made in a small Greek village for a Passion Play during the Turkish occupation of Greece) has some affinity to biblical events leading to Jesus' crucifixion. Powerful in presentation, it never gets excessively sentimental or superficial as do typical "Hollywood" religious productions, nor as sadistically brutal as Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. I've not seen a film about Jesus, or related to Jesus, that I like, not one ... except HE WHO MUST DIE. Brilliantly conceived and executed, it is one of the finest films ever made! I wish I could find it on VHS.

As with another comment posted here, I would note that I too saw the film, only once, way back in the sixties and the memory of it has stuck with me ever since. I have read mixed reviews of the piece which saddens me as I feel that the picture was so finely wrought and deeply moving that nothing should prevent its reaching the widest possible audience. Bad, or Luke-warm reviews can have this effect. "Celui Qui Doit Mourir" should long have been available in a first- rate DVD edition. Its tale of the lives of simple villagers coming to parallel those of the scriptural characters they enact in a Passion Play is a rich, atmospheric parable. The black and white cinematography is exquisite along with the actors' performances and all the other production values of this rare motion picture.

I remember this film so vividly. When the lights of the theater came on at the film's conclusion, people were not merely wiping their eyes- - they were sobbing! Perhaps I was adolescent then, but I remember the movie as being one of the finest films I had ever seen. How, oh how, can I see this film again?

The same writer wrote "last temptation of Christ" where the Savior and Mary Magdelene played prominent parts too.

Dassin was driven from his country in the wake of the witch hunt.He came to France where he made an estimable film noir " Du Rififi Chez les Hommes "(which does not cut his best American works such as " night and the city" or "brute force" )"Celui qui doit mourir is his second film in seven year ,and although it took place in Greece ,it was essentially made with French money and French actors (Pierre Vaneck,Fernand Ledoux,Maurice Ronet,Roger Hanin,Jean Servais are all first-class thespians),the only important Greek artist being Melina Mercouri (it was the first time Dassin had directed her and he was to marry her afterward).

Unfairly despised in France," he who must die" is probably Dassin's best European work.In a Greek village ,under Turkish occupation ,a bunch of refugees asks for help:they are starving and they would like to settle in the hills ,where they could clear pieces of lands which the inhabitants do not cultivate.But their priest does not agree and he tells them so :they have cholera and they could contaminate us all! In the village they get ready for a commemoration of the Passion:a shepherd will be Christ,a widow,Mary Magdelene ,some other inhabitants ,the apostles...but what's the point of this masquerade,which becomes a farce if some people are dying only a mile from your place?the "actors" take a rebel stand and they side with the refugees.Then the new "crucifixion" is around the corner.The Turks turn into some kind of Romans and their chief some Pilate who can wash his hands without tears.

God gives the stammering shepherd the power of speech.The rich young man gives all he owns to the Poor ...

NB: Joseph Dassin aka Jo Dassin ,the director's son ,who was very famous as a singer in Europa ,in the sixties/Seventies ,appears briefly as a young refugee :you can spot him in the scene when their priest tells his flock he dreamed he saw saint George last night.

Rather than go the usual Hollywood biblical epic route, this Good Friday I opted for an alternative "Communist" view of the tale of the Christ via 2 European films made by exiled American film-makers: Edward Dmytryk's British-made GIVE US THIS DAY aka Christ IN CONCRETE (1949) and the French film under review – both of which, incidentally, also share blacklisted screenwriter Ben Barzman. Naturally, neither of these movies is located in Roman-ruled Judea or features crucifixions and, in fact, they are allegorical in nature and modernized in setting. Celebrated Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis – on whose book "Christ Recrucified" Dassin's film was based – would die the same year HE WHO MUST DIE was released and is himself perhaps best-known for another controversial work on similar lines, "The Last Temptation Of Christ", that was filmed much later by fervently Catholic film-maker Martin Scorsese. Set in 1921 in a small Greek village under Turkish rule during Passion Week, the film deals with the moral dilemma caused by the arrival in town of a group of Greek fugitives led by their priest (Jean Servais) – the survivors of a nearby village that was burned to the ground by the Turks. The majority of the townspeople, headed by the fearsome local priest Grigoris (Fernand Ledoux) and the wealthy mayor (Gert Frobe), refuse them any help lest they be judged traitors by the Turks, but a handful are sympathetic to the fugitives' plight: Maurice Ronet (as Forbe's hesitant son), Melina Mercouri (as the popular local widow-whore) and Pierre Vanek (as a simple shepherd in Frobe's employ). HE WHO MUST DIE marked a departure for Dassin who, leaving behind his tried-and-tested noir territory in which he had excelled until then, goes straight for Art in this powerful but heavy-going drama. The villagers are deep in preparation for the annual Passion pageant on Good Friday (a tradition that is still highly popular in my neck of the woods – in fact, I had an uncle and a good friend of mine who both used to take part in local representations of this sort many years ago!) when the harassed band of countrymen pass through their town; needless to say, the resulting heated confrontations makes everybody forget all about the play but the Christ saga soon enacts itself in real-life in the person of the stuttering shepherd (who, unsurprisingly, had been the one chosen to portray Jesus in the first place). The reteaming of Servais and Carl Mohner (as a chief member of the fugitive group) – both from Dassin's legendary caper RIFIFI (1955) – could not have been more different, nor (the future Mrs. Dassin) Melina Mercouri's portrayal here – despite the surface similarities – of the proverbial "whore with a heart of gold" than that of her most famous role in Dassin's popular hit, NEVER ON Sunday (1960)! This unholy mélange of patriotism and sensuality – not to mention Communist solidarity and Christian hypocrisy – cannot fail to give rise to impressive sequences and performances (particularly a white-haired Frobe and the enigmatic 'Blond Christ' Vanek) along the way but also, at least, one major deficiency: the villagers' avowed fear of Turkish retaliation if they aid the fugitives – especially as displayed via the overstated performance of Ledoux as a vindictive Patriarch – rings false when set against the laid-back personality of the Turkish Agha (Gregoire Aslan), perennially clad in pyjamas, seemingly uninterested in anything that happens around him and perfectly happy (until the finale, that is) to let his Christian subjects fight it out amongst themselves! Likewise, the melodramatic tussles over Mercouri's favors, between the awkward, pacifist Vanek and the robust, violent Roger Hanin, seem intended to give the film an extra touch of Greek tragedy more than anything else. Nevertheless, I am grateful to have been provided with an opportunity to check out this elusive Dassin film, and also very glad that it was by way of such a (surprisingly) pristine widescreen copy.