These are exciting times for Bible movie lovers, with several biblical film projects just released or about to come out, like the Netflix film “Mary,” which premiered in December, and Amazon’s “House of David,” released in February.
But I am not one of them, and I was not expecting much from “The Last Supper” (released in theaters March 14), written and directed by Italian filmmaker and artist Mauro Borrelli, and executive-produced by Christian music star Chris Tomlin.
I was wrong. “The Last Supper” is well worth a trip to the movies, especially during Lent.
Yes, the film can help audiences meditate on Jesus’ passion. But it can also encourage Catholics to understand and experience more fully the Easter Vigil as well as the daily celebration of the Mass itself. The writers’ intuition is that we can’t fully comprehend what happens at the Last Supper and in Jesus’ passion, except in the light of the Jewish Passover.
Cinematically, do not expect Mel Gibson’s “The Passion.” But while Jamie Ward’s performance as Jesus is not entirely convincing, the depictions of Judas (Robert Knepper) and Caiaphas (James Faulkner) are.
Unlike other movies on the last moments of Christ, this one concentrates almost exclusively on the Last Supper, which takes up more than half of the film.
The Gospels are very clear that Jesus’ Last Supper was not just a somber farewell dinner, but took place during the Jewish Passover: a great feast celebrated in the homes, family by family, according to the prescriptions in the book of Exodus, as a memorial of the escape from Egypt.
By Jesus’ time this liturgical dinner had evolved into a nights’ long feast involving a complex ceremonial, the Passover Seder, in which the different signs (the bread, the wine, the bitter herbs) made visible the intervention of God in the life of his people.
Jesus followed the ritual of the Jewish Passover but altered the prayers and transformed the meaning of its signs. To illustrate this process of transformation, the film imagines that Jesus and his disciples are hosted by a large family.
The family celebrates the traditional Passover in a room on the ground floor, while Jesus and his disciples have their supper in the upper room. The film then alternates scenes from one room to the other.
The first part of the Passover dinner focused on the memory of slavery. In the lower room, the father passes around the bitter herbs and explains that they signify the bitterness of enslavement, along with the unleavened bread, a symbol of the hasty departure from Egypt.
In the upper room, Jesus does the same sign, but his words are different: This is my body, which will be given up for you. The bread is no longer a sign of the escape from Egypt, it is his body offered on the cross for the salvation of humanity.
In the third part of the Passover Seder, the celebrant lifted a cup of wine and blessed God for all his works, and especially for the covenant he made with the people of Israel. Jesus too distributes the wine to his disciples, but transforms the sign’s meaning: the cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
The movie does an effective job of linking the Last Supper and the Resurrection. Contrary to expectations, the passion of Jesus is dealt with succinctly, and only through brief flashbacks.
The scene that concludes the movie — which I will not spoil — ties the ritual of the Last Supper not just with Jesus’ passion, but also with his resurrection. This is another important insight that is in tune with the spirit of the Jewish Passover.
In the Jewish Passover, the bread symbolizes the bitterness of Egypt, its breaking signifies the end of slavery, and the wine represents the joy of freedom in the promised land.
In the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread makes present Jesus’ death, but it also looks ahead at his resurrection: with his death and resurrection, Jesus brings us from death to life, he introduces us into the Promised Land.
One aspect of the Last Supper could have received more emphasis. The Jewish Passover is not merely a commemoration. The point of the celebration is not only to give thanks and celebrate the Lord for how he saved his people in the distant past, but it is for the people to participate in this salvation here and now.
That is why the Haggadah (the key text that outlines the order of the Passover Seder) proclaims: “In each and every generation every person must regard himself as though he had come forth from Egypt as a slave.” The salvation of God extends to every generation.
This can only benefit believers preparing for this year’s celebration of Easter. Easter is not merely a commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but a moment when we also can pass from death to life on an existential level. The resurrection of Jesus is an event of the now, not of 2,000 years ago.
As St. Paul puts it, we were dead because of sin, and God brought us back to life. We were plagued by envy, lust, resentment, hatred; we were unable to forgive or love anybody but ourselves.
Easter comes to make us experience Christ’s victory over one’s death again: that I can love now; that I can forgive when forgiveness seems impossible. “The Last Supper” is not a masterpiece, but it offers lots of reasons not to wait until the last season of “The Chosen” to return to the movie theater.
