Dir. Rupert Wainwright
After her mother posts her some rosary beads that belonged to a recently deceased Priest, Frankie (Patricia Arquette) begins to exhibit explicit signs of the stigmata – wounds on her body that mirror those inflicted upon Christ when he was crucified. The stigmata are usually only suffered by the devoutly religious – but Frankie is an atheist. Father Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne) is dispatched by the Vatican to investigate, and disprove, this seemingly miraculous phenomenon. When he witnesses Frankie’s affliction for himself, and realises it has no logical explanation, he agrees to help her. They eventually discover a vast conspiracy within the Vatican to cover up religious texts written by Jesus.
The film opens with Kiernan going to South America to study a statue of the Virgin Mary that has cried tears of blood since the death of a renowned local priest. The priest discovered texts he believed were written by Jesus and even though they contradict the concept of organised religion, he was desperate to go public with the discovery. Doves flutter ethereally around the beautifully lit interior of the building. A young boy suddenly pinches the rosary from the priest’s coffin... We go immediately from the sobriety and quite creepy atmosphere of this prologue to a blasting techno soundtrack and an epileptic montage of Frankie's hectic life as she works, parties and distributes small acts of kindness to those she encounters on the streets of Pittsburgh. Wainwright gives us a lot of information under the opening credits. Which is kind of how the film plays out as a whole. There's interesting stuff going on under the distracting barrage of frenetic editing and stylisation.
As I was deeply affected by the moody lighting and aesthetic delights of Bladerunner and The Crow, I fell head over heels in love with Stigmata. It's like Wainwright was deeply affected by the opening credits of Se7en and thought it might be cool to make a whole film like that. For all their stylish chutzpah though, the visuals actually overwhelm the story and dampen any sense of tension. What could have been a potentially slow-burning, eerie and brooding affair, is lost amidst MTV aesthetics, strobe-light editing, and enough dry ice and back-lit rain to give Ridley Scott a run for his money. Oh, and candles. Lots of candles. Candles feature in almost every scene, making Frankie’s cavernous apartment a bit theistic looking.
When Frankie experiences the ‘attacks’ that inflict her stigmatic wounds, the editing becomes more frantic and the images of her writhing in slo-mo agony are spliced with shots of a hammer driving a large spike through a hand or blood flowing backwards. Wainwright has taken a potentially enthralling story with theological debate and some interesting points about the potential danger of organised religion, and pummelled it all through bombastic visuals, over-exposed lighting, pigeons flying in slow motion, and enough heavy-handed Catholic iconographic imagery to sink a very large heathen ship (especially the bit with Arquette wrapped in a white robe with a pigeon in her hand). There's an intriguing subplot involving a secret movement within the Vatican, led by Jonathan Pryce doing his best pantomime villain act, whose main goal is to disprove miracles. They also go to deadly lengths to stop anyone from debunking the power of the Church. Sadly it's all underdeveloped and a bit caricaturish. The not so subtle love story between Frankie and Father Kiernan feels tacked on and completely unnecessary.
Heavily compared to The Exorcist upon its release, aside from a vaguely sinister prologue set in an exotic location and the fact the story is about the possession of a young woman, the two films could not be more different. While The Exorcist was supremely creepy and unsettling, Stigmata is loud and brash. There is an exorcism scene towards the end of Stigmata where Frankie spits insults at the priests by her bedside before the room is consumed by CGI flames, but this doesn't even come close to the power wielded by similar scenes in The Exorcist.
The soundtrack comes courtesy of Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, and is all drum machines and eerie synths, with some songs by the likes of Bjork and Sinead O'Connor to lend emotional heft.
Stigmata will always have a very special place on the video shelf in my heart. It is many things to many people. For me, it's a big, dumb, colourful tale about the religious significance of pigeons and an atheist hairdresser, with a hectic social life, who comes close to de-powering the Church and putting an end to oppressive organised religion. Amen.