Rogue Cinema - Blood of the Cross (2007)

Blood of the Cross (2007) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Thursday, November 01 @ Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

Blood of the Cross is a film about a guy who's just trying to make some art. He's a black guy, and he's playing in his own movie as Jesus up on the cross. I mention that he's a black guy because there's a really amusing bit in the dialogue that relates to it, but I won't spoil the joke here. It was actually one of the film's funniest moments though.

Anyway, this guy's way into making an artistically superior film. Needless to say, he's a massive pain in the ass to work with. His camera guy hates him and tries to walk off, his fellow cast mates hate him because he's a pain to work with and the poor producer is just trying to hold it all together long enough to get the damn thing made.

Blood of the Cross is a short comedy, and actually ventures into the realm of slapstick type physical comedy at times. This is a rather dangeous thing to do, because if you have actors that can't pull it off believably, or even comically, then it just won't work. How it worked in this film I'll get to in a minute.

As stated above, this film was a short. With the right writing however it could actually be turned into an amusing feature, which is a nice change, because I see a lot of features that would have worked far better as shorts.

Technically the film was great. Great shots, great editing, the lighting was perfect, the sound was great, and the pacing made everything flow along really well. Thee was just one thing that didn't work so well for me, and that was the physical comedy aspects of it.

While the physical comedy parts of the film were amusing, they weren't really the kind of thing that make you cringe. We all like to laugh at other people's pain, so when we see physical comedy, the more believable it is, the funnier it is. There were bits of slapstick silliness in this film that were amusing, but it never really had an, "Oh my god!!!!! Ouch!!!!!" moment.

The dialogue and the goofy stuff that was going on in this film are what made it truly enjoyable. Especially the dialogue between "Jesus" and his fellow actors. God, he put them through hell, constantly changing where people stood, having people change characters, changing dialogue, etc... Basically the most stereotypical "artsy" independent film maker you could imagine.

This was a fun film and though I've only seen it once, I have a feeling I'd like it even more with a second viewing, which I'm sure I'll be doing at some point soon.

If you'd like to find out more about this film, you can check out the film's website at http://www.bloodofthecross.com. It's definitely worth your time to check it out.