I'm still scarred from watching Geraldo Rivera hype it up before opening Al Capone's safe and finding it completely empty. And there I was, like so many schmucks in America, sitting there feeling as if I'd just wasted an hour and a half. Since then, anything that purports to give me the inside dope on anything I always approach with a certain amount of skepticism--even this feature-length film, which is based on one of the many books that tried to capitalize on the phenomenal success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.
"Secrets of the Code" is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Dan Burstein. Resistant to phenomena as I am, I refused to read Brown's book, and of course stayed away from the cottage industry of related books that sprung up around it, including Burstein's. But I have seen the movie starring Tom Hanks, and my wife (who did read the novel) filled in the gaps for me. So I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.
But to be honest, you really don't have to have a deep understanding of either of the Dan's books to realize that "Secrets of the Code," which is narrated by Susan Sarandon, isn't a great documentary.
What my wife hoped for and what I expected was a film that walks you through the clues that Robert Langdon finds in the Louvre involving Leonardo Da Vinci, secret societies, and the Holy Grail. What we got, especially in the first half of this haphazardly constructed documentary, was a rather vague (and "out there") tutorial on the sacred feminine and general background on early Christianity. While there's some attention to the symbols, nothing is in order, nothing is explored in any depth, and whole paintings and clues from the book are omitted.
Every documentary lives and dies on the basis of its talking heads, and this one offers a group that seems instantly suspect. Most of them seem eccentric to the point where you think their theories put them on the fringe rather than the mainstream of scholarly thought. There's also a great deal of redundancy, and the filmmakers can't seem to get past the dramatic dialectic of offering an "out there" view of Mary Magdalene which is then quickly countered by someone from the Church saying how "out there" it is. It gets tiresome, when all we wanted was to find out more about those symbols and those locations--not listen to an expert of dubious nature who keeps talking about "vulva rocks" and blathering on about how "It's obvious from the architecture of the cave and the art that's in it that we're within the earth goddess herself." No, it's not obvious . . . not to anyone who isn't caught up in their own little world of vulva worship. We get a lot of overreaching here, with explanations of how sex and God are linked, or why else would so many people cry out, during orgasm, "Oh God, Oh God"? Oh . . . give me a break. None of these "scholarly" theories are developed to any degree--only presented as fact, and then refuted by those men in collars. And all the while we keep wondering, what does all of this have to do with the Code, again?
though this was filmed in London, Glastonbury, New York City, Rome, and Israel, there are so many talking heads that make your head spin that you don't get much of a sense of following the trail of Robert Langdon. The closest we get to those clues from the book/movie is a discussion of the identity and nature of Mary Magdalene, Gnostic gospels, and the Holy Grail. And of all the talking heads, there are only two that seem brilliant and convincing: Dr. Elaine Pagels, who is a much-published expert on religion and religious philosophy, and Rabbi Irwin Kula, who speaks with authority and backs up his assertions with reasoned and developed arguments. More of those two on-camera would have helped this documentary, as would a script that stayed more on point rather than approaching the topic generally and then circling back . . . and back.
"Secrets of the Code" is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Dan Burstein. Resistant to phenomena as I am, I refused to read Brown's book, and of course stayed away from the cottage industry of related books that sprung up around it, including Burstein's. But I have seen the movie starring Tom Hanks, and my wife (who did read the novel) filled in the gaps for me. So I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.
But to be honest, you really don't have to have a deep understanding of either of the Dan's books to realize that "Secrets of the Code," which is narrated by Susan Sarandon, isn't a great documentary.
What my wife hoped for and what I expected was a film that walks you through the clues that Robert Langdon finds in the Louvre involving Leonardo Da Vinci, secret societies, and the Holy Grail. What we got, especially in the first half of this haphazardly constructed documentary, was a rather vague (and "out there") tutorial on the sacred feminine and general background on early Christianity. While there's some attention to the symbols, nothing is in order, nothing is explored in any depth, and whole paintings and clues from the book are omitted.
Every documentary lives and dies on the basis of its talking heads, and this one offers a group that seems instantly suspect. Most of them seem eccentric to the point where you think their theories put them on the fringe rather than the mainstream of scholarly thought. There's also a great deal of redundancy, and the filmmakers can't seem to get past the dramatic dialectic of offering an "out there" view of Mary Magdalene which is then quickly countered by someone from the Church saying how "out there" it is. It gets tiresome, when all we wanted was to find out more about those symbols and those locations--not listen to an expert of dubious nature who keeps talking about "vulva rocks" and blathering on about how "It's obvious from the architecture of the cave and the art that's in it that we're within the earth goddess herself." No, it's not obvious . . . not to anyone who isn't caught up in their own little world of vulva worship. We get a lot of overreaching here, with explanations of how sex and God are linked, or why else would so many people cry out, during orgasm, "Oh God, Oh God"? Oh . . . give me a break. None of these "scholarly" theories are developed to any degree--only presented as fact, and then refuted by those men in collars. And all the while we keep wondering, what does all of this have to do with the Code, again?
though this was filmed in London, Glastonbury, New York City, Rome, and Israel, there are so many talking heads that make your head spin that you don't get much of a sense of following the trail of Robert Langdon. The closest we get to those clues from the book/movie is a discussion of the identity and nature of Mary Magdalene, Gnostic gospels, and the Holy Grail. And of all the talking heads, there are only two that seem brilliant and convincing: Dr. Elaine Pagels, who is a much-published expert on religion and religious philosophy, and Rabbi Irwin Kula, who speaks with authority and backs up his assertions with reasoned and developed arguments. More of those two on-camera would have helped this documentary, as would a script that stayed more on point rather than approaching the topic generally and then circling back . . . and back.
I'm still scarred from watching Geraldo Rivera hype it up before opening Al Capone's safe and finding it completely empty. And there I was, like so many schmucks in America, sitting there feeling as if I'd just wasted an hour and a half. Since then, anything that purports to give me the inside dope on anything I always approach with a certain amount of skepticism--even this feature-length film, which is based on one of the many books that tried to capitalize on the phenomenal success of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.
"Secrets of the Code" is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Dan Burstein. Resistant to phenomena as I am, I refused to read Brown's book, and of course stayed away from the cottage industry of related books that sprung up around it, including Burstein's. But I have seen the movie starring Tom Hanks, and my wife (who did read the novel) filled in the gaps for me. So I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.
But to be honest, you really don't have to have a deep understanding of either of the Dan's books to realize that "Secrets of the Code," which is narrated by Susan Sarandon, isn't a great documentary.
What my wife hoped for and what I expected was a film that walks you through the clues that Robert Langdon finds in the Louvre involving Leonardo Da Vinci, secret societies, and the Holy Grail. What we got, especially in the first half of this haphazardly constructed documentary, was a rather vague (and "out there") tutorial on the sacred feminine and general background on early Christianity. While there's some attention to the symbols, nothing is in order, nothing is explored in any depth, and whole paintings and clues from the book are omitted.
Every documentary lives and dies on the basis of its talking heads, and this one offers a group that seems instantly suspect. Most of them seem eccentric to the point where you think their theories put them on the fringe rather than the mainstream of scholarly thought. There's also a great deal of redundancy, and the filmmakers can't seem to get past the dramatic dialectic of offering an "out there" view of Mary Magdalene which is then quickly countered by someone from the Church saying how "out there" it is. It gets tiresome, when all we wanted was to find out more about those symbols and those locations--not listen to an expert of dubious nature who keeps talking about "vulva rocks" and blathering on about how "It's obvious from the architecture of the cave and the art that's in it that we're within the earth goddess herself." No, it's not obvious . . . not to anyone who isn't caught up in their own little world of vulva worship. We get a lot of overreaching here, with explanations of how sex and God are linked, or why else would so many people cry out, during orgasm, "Oh God, Oh God"? Oh . . . give me a break. None of these "scholarly" theories are developed to any degree--only presented as fact, and then refuted by those men in collars. And all the while we keep wondering, what does all of this have to do with the Code, again?
though this was filmed in London, Glastonbury, New York City, Rome, and Israel, there are so many talking heads that make your head spin that you don't get much of a sense of following the trail of Robert Langdon. The closest we get to those clues from the book/movie is a discussion of the identity and nature of Mary Magdalene, Gnostic gospels, and the Holy Grail. And of all the talking heads, there are only two that seem brilliant and convincing: Dr. Elaine Pagels, who is a much-published expert on religion and religious philosophy, and Rabbi Irwin Kula, who speaks with authority and backs up his assertions with reasoned and developed arguments. More of those two on-camera would have helped this documentary, as would a script that stayed more on point rather than approaching the topic generally and then circling back . . . and back.
"Secrets of the Code" is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Dan Burstein. Resistant to phenomena as I am, I refused to read Brown's book, and of course stayed away from the cottage industry of related books that sprung up around it, including Burstein's. But I have seen the movie starring Tom Hanks, and my wife (who did read the novel) filled in the gaps for me. So I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.
But to be honest, you really don't have to have a deep understanding of either of the Dan's books to realize that "Secrets of the Code," which is narrated by Susan Sarandon, isn't a great documentary.
What my wife hoped for and what I expected was a film that walks you through the clues that Robert Langdon finds in the Louvre involving Leonardo Da Vinci, secret societies, and the Holy Grail. What we got, especially in the first half of this haphazardly constructed documentary, was a rather vague (and "out there") tutorial on the sacred feminine and general background on early Christianity. While there's some attention to the symbols, nothing is in order, nothing is explored in any depth, and whole paintings and clues from the book are omitted.
Every documentary lives and dies on the basis of its talking heads, and this one offers a group that seems instantly suspect. Most of them seem eccentric to the point where you think their theories put them on the fringe rather than the mainstream of scholarly thought. There's also a great deal of redundancy, and the filmmakers can't seem to get past the dramatic dialectic of offering an "out there" view of Mary Magdalene which is then quickly countered by someone from the Church saying how "out there" it is. It gets tiresome, when all we wanted was to find out more about those symbols and those locations--not listen to an expert of dubious nature who keeps talking about "vulva rocks" and blathering on about how "It's obvious from the architecture of the cave and the art that's in it that we're within the earth goddess herself." No, it's not obvious . . . not to anyone who isn't caught up in their own little world of vulva worship. We get a lot of overreaching here, with explanations of how sex and God are linked, or why else would so many people cry out, during orgasm, "Oh God, Oh God"? Oh . . . give me a break. None of these "scholarly" theories are developed to any degree--only presented as fact, and then refuted by those men in collars. And all the while we keep wondering, what does all of this have to do with the Code, again?
though this was filmed in London, Glastonbury, New York City, Rome, and Israel, there are so many talking heads that make your head spin that you don't get much of a sense of following the trail of Robert Langdon. The closest we get to those clues from the book/movie is a discussion of the identity and nature of Mary Magdalene, Gnostic gospels, and the Holy Grail. And of all the talking heads, there are only two that seem brilliant and convincing: Dr. Elaine Pagels, who is a much-published expert on religion and religious philosophy, and Rabbi Irwin Kula, who speaks with authority and backs up his assertions with reasoned and developed arguments. More of those two on-camera would have helped this documentary, as would a script that stayed more on point rather than approaching the topic generally and then circling back . . . and back.
No comments:
Post a Comment