Go straight to the featured films:
Babette's Feast
Daughters of the Dust
Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait
Breaking the Waves

This second series of Film as Theological Text (click here for the first series) focuses on women in community -- women living in and against culture. Religious liberals are beginning to move from the assumption that individuals are self-sufficient to a realization that the self is not fully developed until it understands its existence in relation to others, relational theology. This is the context that holds this series together. All of the films selected for this series ask viewers to examine what it means to live in relationship, in community with others-what responsibilities we have to each other and to ourselves.

The films featured in this series have a number of common themes:

• The films all challenge commonly held assumptions about the relationship between religion and sensuality for women in particular.
• Each invites viewers to consider their theology of the self and their theology of community. More particularly, in this regard, they ask us to reconsider the relationship between the sacred and the secular as related to women.
• Each film is set in a rural or obscure setting in which social norms are more clearly defined than in urban or more densely populated communities. By extension, this begs the question: What are the responsibilities of community in the context of social and religious isolation?
• In different ways, different times and places, women featured in these films transgress the social conventions of patriarchal societies, and challenge what it means to be worthy, good, righteous, upstanding women. Answering this challenge has often meant that women have claimed and proclaimed a different way of being religious.
• All films in this series explore the concept of "otherness"-what it means to be an outsider in a tightly-knit community.

Although each film can stand alone, as in series one, because of strong thematic parallels, they are coupled in the following sequence:

• Babette's Feast and Daughters of the Dust
• Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait and Breaking the Waves

While religion is explicitly the subject in two of the films, the religious and theological overtones are evident in each film. In addition to food as a common theme, the producers/directors of Babette's Feast and Daughters of the Dust took an extraordinary number of years (fourteen in each case) to make their films, exemplifying their commitment and determination to tell their stories in a different way. Both films are about memory and hope. In Daughters, the primary dilemma is the threat of losing cultural memory -- both conscious and unconscious -- ways of life before slavery, as well as hope for new life in a place unknown. In Babette, the memory is at once nostalgic -- of the important role the pastor once played in the community -- and at the same time deeply committed to emulating the life of Jesus, all of which is expressed in a grand feast.

In including Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait, we depart from our usual practice of featuring popular dramatic films. This program lies in stark contrast to the classical interpretation of the Christian narrative as exemplified in the Danish village in which Babette finds herself or the rural Scottish community that is the setting for Breaking the Waves. Of all the films featured in this series, Breaking the Waves is perhaps the most complex. Like Mary Magdalen, Breaking the Waves, through the main character, Bess, explores what some believe has been the dominant culturally constructed paradox faced by women for centuries-they must adopt the identity of either the virgin or the whore. Thus viewers are challenged to imagine a new world in which women can have holistic community, a world in which their physical, emotional, and spiritual lives are fully integrated.

The religious communities in Babette's Feast and Breaking the Waves hold in common a conservative religious understanding that shapes, challenges, and in some cases changes the film's subjects.

Three of the four films featured in this series were inspired by stories told by women; one (Daughters) was directed by a woman. As with all installments of Film as Theological Text, look for additional films for this series in future REACH packets.

Babette's Feast
Distributor: Festival Films
Rating: G
Story by Isak Dinnesen, film directed by Gabriel Axel
Length: 102 minutes
Dutch and French with English subtitles Available on video (1986) or DVD (2001)

"Mercy is endless and we only need receive it in gratitude."
--General Löwenhielm, Babette's Feast

Facilitator's Guide

1. Because not all participants will be able to read the subtitles or follow the storyline with equal proficiency, prior to starting the viewing of the film, the facilitator should make an announcement to determine if there are any special needs. You may need to 'fill in the gaps' prior to entering into a full-fledged understanding.
2. Bryan Stone, a professor at Boston University's School of Theology, points out that the names "Martina" and "Philippa" are indicative of the father's devotion to the Protestant reformer, Martin Luther and his successor Philip Melancthon.
3. While the film can be shown at any time of the year, it is chock full of Christian symbolism, which could make for rich discussion between Thanksgiving (feast, family, and community) and Advent (making a new start).
4. Structure and symbolism are important clues to understanding Babette's Feast. The following are among the things to which you may wish to give attention:
   • "Jerusalem, my true home," the opening hymn, is sung at least three times throughout the film. Jerusalem is a symbol of hope, a vision for a new future, a world transformed-a beloved community where, according to Christian understanding, a banquet will be served. While the community believed that this new world would be in the hereafter, the song also symbolizes the new life that is being realized through Babette's presence.
   • The community awakens to the miracle of reconciliation-through food and drink, symbolizing that the body must be fed as well as the soul.
   • Babette is one of several characters (or goodwill ambassadors) who are introduced as people who might open up the community's doors to a wider world, to help them to understand that we are created to enjoy this world. These figures include General Löwenhielm and opera singer Archille Papin, neither of whom succeeds in releasing or integrating the community into a world beyond it's isolated village. Enter Babette-an outsider, a woman, a poor refugee-who becomes a salvific figure. By her natural talent for creative cookery, loving kindness, and willingness to give of herself fully without reward, she is the one who rekindles the fire of the community, saving the people from their own divisiveness, their brokenness, and potential for self-destruction. Thus, one message of the film is that giving of one's self is salvific, that when we share the gifts we have been given with others, it is powerful enough to save ourselves and others from alienation and brokenness.
   • The dinner is symbolic of the Last Supper in the biblical story. There are twelve guests at the table, symbolic of Jesus' twelve disciples, while Babette (who remains in the kitchen throughout) serves the guests, representing the image of Jesus as servant.
5. Quotations from the film that you may wish to recall or reference:
   • Lorens to Martina: "I have learned that there are things in this world that are impossible."
   • Papin and Martina singing an aria together: "I'm afraid of my own joy."
   • Babette: "An artist is never poor.... I was able to make them happy when I gave them my very best."
   • General Löwenhielm's toast: "Mercy is endless and we only need receive it in gratitude."

Discussion Questions

1. Thinking about the film's structure and symbolism, what is this film about? What symbolism did you notice?
2. Beyond the piety and eschatological hope of the religious sect, what was the religious vision of the film? Is the message particular to Christianity, or is its message more universal?
3. How would you contrast Babette's role in relation to the sisters, Philippa and Martina?
4. Why did Babette want to prepare the feast? What was her purpose? Why didn't she use the lottery money to return to France or in some other way for her own benefit?
5. The cohesiveness envisioned by the pastor was lost at his death. One might say that the people's bodies were nourished with a daily ration of traditional ale bread and soup, but their souls were hungry. Martina and Philippa sought to hold on to their father's dream of a flourishing united community together, but their effort was failing. Does this convey the filmmaker's (or writer's) conscious or unconscious perception of women as weak or powerless, in relative terms? If the pastor had sons instead of daughters, might it have made the critical difference to the community's unification?
6. Keeping in mind that the theology of the community was, in effect, to be "in the world, but not of it," what did you observe about the relationship between the sacred and the secular before the meal and after the meal? Who (which character or characters) most exemplified the relationship between sacred and secular?
7. The feast Babette prepared has been called a sacramental meal- communion, an Agape meal, the Last Supper. Do you agree or disagree with this symbolic interpretation?
8. The character of General Löwenhielm, played a particular role in the film. How do you interpret his role in general, but particularly during the feast?
9. In what ways did the meal have a transformative effect on the whole community?

Daughters of the Dust
Geechee Girls Productions
Rating: Not rated in the U.S., PG in the UK
Written and directed by Julie Dash
Length: 112 minutes
English and Patois Available on video (2000) or DVD

"I'm trying to give you something to track your spirit with."
--Nana Peazant, Daughters of the Dust

Facilitator's Guide

1. Because Daughters of the Dust involves significant learning about a relatively little known culture that is deeply rooted in African religious understandings, preparation for this film may be slightly longer than usual. For this film in particular, two facilitators are recommended, as reflection and discussion of new information with another person is often useful. Resources marked by an asterisk (*) in both the footnotes and listed as "Additional Resources" are recommended particularly for facilitators. While this facilitator's guide is provided as background information, we suggest that after reviewing the material, facilitators should mutually agree upon a learning approach based on the culture and expectations of participants.
2. Worship and reflection resources recommended for this film include: (a) Opening Words ("Our first task ... before our arrival"), and (b) Our Common Destiny by David Eaton. In addition, a recording by Sweet Honey in the Rock, that speaks directly to the theme of this film is "Breaths" (music written by Ysaye Barnwell, 1980). The lyrics, adapted from a poem by Birago Diop, are included in Appendix B. If you plan to show all the films in this series on Women in Community, the reading from the Gnostic Scripture ("I am the first ... utterance of my name") the opening words of Daughters of the Dust, may be more appropriate in this series for Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait. If you are now planning to show Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait, you may wish to use this reflection immediately following the screening of Daughters.
3. Historically, the Sea Islands were among the last locations in the United States where African people were taken during the Atlantic slave trade. Because of this, and their isolation from the U.S. mainland, Sea Islanders were able to maintain more of their African traditions, language, and heritage. For this reason, some of the characters in Daughters of the Dust speak English, while others speak Patois, a dialect that combines West African languages and English. Beyond language and cadence, however, the film includes cultural references whose meaning transcends language. You may wish to consult the sources following the discussion questions and/or copy and distribute the glossary (following) of names, terms, and limited contextual information to participants.
4. Writer/director Julie Dash is not specific in naming which of the nine or more Sea Islands serves as the setting for her story; however, a hand-written notation on the screenplay suggests Dafuskie Island off the coast of South Carolina. While there are many commonalities between the peoples and cultures of West Africa, generalizations cannot be made for all African enslaved peoples brought to the Sea Islands. While Dash's Ibo Landing is suggestive of Nigerian ethnic heritage, many descendents of St. Helena Island (also near the South Carolina coast) trace their linguistic (and thereby ethnic) heritage to Sierra Leone. And there is anecdotal evidence to suggest Senegal as a third possible country of origin.
5. Three religious orientations are seen throughout the film: African traditional religion, Christianity, and Islam-all of which are representative of African history. Traditional African religions remained strong in Africa after the Crusades and in spite of the missionary influence and religious colonialism by both Christian and Islamic countries. The film presents African traditional religious practice and Christianity in competition for the attention of the Peazant family. Nevertheless, an Islamic presence (with limited Arabic spoken) is also apparent.
6. The essence of the African cosmos is spiritual. In the structure of traditional African philosophy, all living things are organically connected, interrelated, and interdependent. Unlike the dominant Western view in which spirit and matter are distinct and irreconcilable, African philosophy and religion are based on a conception of being as an invisible and an unbroken circle of spirits-from conception to birth to life to death. In this view, coupled with the traditional African structure of family lineage, the place of the Unborn and the Ancestors in the cosmos is the sphere that is closest to God. The living are understood as intermediaries between those yet to be born and those who have become ancestors.
7. In traditional African philosophy and religion, there is no separation between sacred and secular life. These are understood holistically as part of everyday life.
8. Hand-written notes on Dash's screenplay suggest that the film's major characters are based on archetypes of Yoruba gods and goddesses. For those who may be interested, probable character parallels are as follows:
   • Nana Peazant: Obatala
   • Yellow Mary: Yemaya, "Mother of the Sea, the mother of dreams, the mother of secrets"
   • Eli: Ogun, "God of Iron"
   • The Unborn Child: Elegba, "the one to whom we appeal to overcome indecision"
   • Trula: Oshun
9. The people of the Sea Islands are commonly called the Gullah or Geechee. The following suggests possible origins of these terms: Some argue that the word, Gullah, is an outgrowth of the West African country, Angola, which was pronounced by many as nGola. Others advance the theory that the Gullah-speaking African Americans who reside on the mid-eastern Atlantic coast have direct links to the people of the African nation of Sierra Leone. Another term used to identify the culture and people: initiative is the word, Geechee. While many are puzzled about the origin of that expression, it could have a perfectly logical explanation. The region of the country where many of the African slaves resided and their descendents still live is near Savannah, Georgia's Ogeechee River. That river is close enough to the target group -- from Charleston and Beaufort in South Carolina, Savannah and the Golden Isles in Georgia, and Jacksonville, Florida-to have given the language or dialect of English spoken by the inhabitants a slang derivative of the name, Ogeechee River, "Geechee." If indeed, "Geechee" does label correctly a group of African Americans who had their origins in the Savannah, Georgia area, the term "Gullah" would refer to the overall group from North Carolina to Florida.
10. The film presents four primary conflicts:
    • The most obvious conflict is the decision for the bulk of the Peazant family to leave the island its history and heritage against the wishes of the family matriarch whose objective is to preserve African culture and traditions.
    • The second conflict, between tradition and modernity, is most cogently expressed by those who embrace Western values and traditions, including Christianity (see #2 above).
    • The third conflict centers around Eli's decision to participate in an anti-lynching campaign. A positive response would represent conceding to participation in a modern-day social issue, with the possibility of becoming submerged in the future rather than the past.
    • Eli's internal and spiritual conflict about giving birth to a child who may have been conceived in rape. While the dialogue between Eli and Nana makes clear Eli's discomfort with the possibility, the filmic technique of the Unborn child as narrator of the film makes it clear that the child Eula carries is, in fact, Eli's child. This child is, in a way, the voice of prophesy and hope for an unknown future.
    In a scene toward the end of the film (following the minister's farewell charge), Eula has been walking alone and the spirit of her Unborn Child is seen running toward her and disappearing into her body. Standing on the shore, she tells the baby a legend of how her people, the Ibo, were brought to the island as slaves, but as if to refer to the Biblical passage of the Hebrews walking on water, the Ibos walked back to Africa. Eli emerges from the woods and walks on the water touching a wooden statue of an Ibo man floating on the shoreline. When he returns to the land, he and Eula embrace, suggesting a reconciliation of his conflict, seen throughout the film. It is also a reconciliation of his conflicted feeling about whether to give more energy to his African past or a future on the mainland.
11. See Appendix A for the text of two dialogues in the film that may be helpful in deepening your understanding of traditional African religion and philosophy.
12. Financing of independent films is often difficult for new filmmakers. When Julie Dash conceived Daughters of the Dust, she had already made the decision that she would maintain her independence and her integrity as a filmmaker. In many ways then, this is a political film. Not in the sense of its plot, but in its method of production as well as its content as the intentional reconstruction of African American memory-combined with myth, which is the basis of many religions. According to Toni Cade Bambara, when Julie Dash was in her formative years as a filmmaker, she was part of a group of black filmmakers who, in the 1960's, wrote a "declaration of independence" from Hollywood. Their declaration included the following tenets:
    • Accountability to the community takes precedence over training for an industry that maligns and exploits, trivializes and invisibilizes Black people.
    • It is the destiny of our people that concerns us, not self-indulgent assignments about neurotic preoccupations.
    • Our task is to reconstruct cultural memory, not slavishly to imitate White models.
    • Students should have access to world film culture -- African, Asian, Latin American cinema -- in addition to Hitchcock, Ford, and Renoir.

Discussion questions

1. In your view, what is the significance of ethnicity, history, and/or culture in identity formation and change? What is the value of embracing a world-view that is rooted in or based on ethnic, national, or regional identity (e.g., Euro-centric, Afro-centric, etc.)
2. Should people from ethnic subcultural groups be expected to assimilate into mainstream culture or retain their own cultural roots?
3. What do you think the film conveys about the relationship between the sacred and the secular?
4. In the monologue below, Nana Peazant articulates a traditional African view of cosmology-an integrated philosophy of birth, life, and death. (Referring to her deceased husband, she is speaking to her grandson, Eli. Her use of the term "got forced" is a reference to the rape of Eli's wife Eula). How does this philosophy compare to your own view?

   NANA : "I visit with old Peazant every day since the day he died. It's up to the living to keep in touch with the dead, Eli. Man's power doesn't end with death. We just move on to a new place, a place where we watch over our living family... Respect your elders! Respect your family! Respect your ancestors! You're worried that baby Eula's carrying isn't yours because she got forced. Eli, you won't ever have a baby that wasn't sent to you. The ancestors and the womb...they're one, they're the same. Those in this grave, like those who're across the sea, they're with us. They're all the same. The ancestors and the womb are one. Call on your ancestors, Eli. Let them guide you. You need their strength. Eli, I need you to make the family strong again, like we used to be."

5. If you, or someone you know, have had a crisis of faith-perhaps feeling as Eli did, as if the only solution was to escape it all-how did you find strength to sustain you?
6. Nana Peazant's insistence on her family remembering their past was more than desire. It was based on an ontological premise that if the family migrated North, the chain of memory would be broken, and the family would be at risk of losing not only its identity-being 'washed up' in a foreign culture that could destroy their spirits-but becoming cut off from the sacred community that could "wreak havoc on them, their family and the entire tribal community." In your experience and your cultural framework, what is the role of memory? Are other migration or immigration experiences subject to a similar loss of cultural memory? How can memory help us to heal from painful experiences of the past?
7. In the monologue below, Haagar makes clear her belief that there is a conflict between tradition and modernity; she clearly favors modernity. She equates education with progress and tradition with backwardness. Do you agree or disagree with her view? Can you cite examples that would illustrate your viewpoint? From Haagar's monologue (below), what might Unitarian Universalists learn about multiple religious perspectives within Unitarian Universalism-particularly between Pagans or Earth-centered practitioners and liberal Christians? What might we learn about interfaith relations?

   HAAGAR: "I'm an educated person...and I'm tired of Nana's old stories. Watching her make those root potions...and that Hoo doo she talks about. Washing up in the river with her clothes on, just like those old "Salt Water" folks used to do. My children ain't gonna be like those old Africans fresh off the boat. My god, I still remember them. Those old people, they pray to the sun, they pray to the moon, sometimes just to a big star! They ain't got no religion in them. No! This is a new world we're moving into and I want my daughters to grow up to be decent "somebodies" ... I don't even want my girls to have to hear about all that mess. I'll lock horns against anybody, anything that tries to hold me back. Now I say, if Nana Peazant wants to live and die in Ibo Landing, then God Bless her old soul."

8. What might the younger women who were schooled in Western ways (exemplified by Haagar and Viola in the film) have to learn from an older unschooled woman rooted in tradition? Thinking about your family (or another multi-generational family), what values, experiences, or wisdom should be passed down from generation to generation?
9. Some people have said that the cinematography of Daughters of the Dust (the film won the award for best cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival) is so stunningly beautiful and slow-paced that it cancels out the social relevancy of the subject. Do you agree or disagree? Can any visual medium maintain a high aesthetic standard and at the same time convey a strong social message? There were no big-name stars in the film. The film is made from the point of view of "the culture of women." Both the characters and the actors were unfamiliar to most of us. The themes were provocative. And the filmmaker used a reflective narrative style (characteristic of African oral tradition) rather than a tension-building emotion-filled progression. How did you experience these filmmaking techniques-in contrast to Hollywood films?
10. The Farewell service is a rite of passage that has a double meaning: the passage from one stage of life to another and the physical passage from one place to another. The minister offers a proleptical charge expressing the hope that the family will be sustained as it faces a new life-the challenge of acculturation without Nana Peazant's memory, wisdom, and the oral tradition to sustain them. Have you known anyone who has experienced an identity crisis? If so, what was the source of the crisis, and how was it resolved? What practices or rituals might be helpful for people facing an uncertain future?
11. Why do you think Yellow Mary decided to stay on the island?

Glossary

• Goober Head: Goober means peanut. Nana Peazant's term of endearment for her great grandson, Eli.

• Haagar: The film's antagonist, Haagar is the granddaughter-in-law of Nana Peazant. The name Haagar may be a symbolic reference to Hagar, the biblical character in Genesis, an Egyptian maid-servant who bore Abraham's first son, Ishmael. After she was expelled from the household of Abraham and Sarah in ancient Israel, Hagar returned to Egypt where she became the maternal ancestor of another people, the Arabs. By assigning a similar name to the character who is most critical of Nana Peazant's attempt to preserve the family's African roots, the filmmaker may be making a veiled statement that Haagar's decision to go North, to the mainland, is tantamount to expulsion and self-identification with another people.

• hoo doo: A form of superstition or Voodoo practiced in the Sea Islands, parts of the Caribbean, and West Africa. Haagar's reference to Nana's "hoo doo mess" is seen as disrespectful in general, but particularly disrespectful in light of the fact that Nana is an elder.

• Ibo Landing: The Ibo are a tribe in Southeastern Nigeria. The film is set on Ibo Landing, the Peazant family homestead.

• Salt Water People: A reference to enslaved African people brought to the West via the salty waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

• St. Christopher: Yellow Mary wears a St. Christopher medal, a Christian symbol thought to protect travelers. Nana Peazant is surprised that Mary would be impressed by such a silly notion.

• "Yellow Mary": Yellow is a common reference to "colorism" within the African American community applied to mulattos and those whose complexion is comparatively 'fair' in relation to those with darker skin tones. Historically, it was presumed that such a person would earn more social privileges because they could more easily assimilate and be accepted into a Euro-centric world. Of Mary's return, Viola mentions "All that yellow wasted!" suggesting that Mary was envied for her lighter skin; at the same time Mary is scorned because she did not use skin color to her advantage-to pass as white. For this character, who was a prostitute during her time in Cuba, undoubtedly, yellow also refers to Mary being an unclean, soiled or "ruint" woman. While becoming a prostitute in Cuba was clearly driven by economic deprivation, it may have also been Yellow Mary's choice as social transgression -- a rebellion against her presumed privilege and social convention.

Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait
Stuart Television Productions
Rating: Not rated
Written by Sarah Payne Stuart
Length: 43 minutes
Available on video (1995)
Your UU District Office/Library Has Copies Available

"There were also many women there looking on from afar who had followed Jesus from Galilee ministering to him."
--Matthew 27:55 (RSV)

Facilitator's Guide

1. While this video is about a major figure within the Christian tradition, one need not be Christian or accept Christianity to appreciate Mary Magdalen as a central figure in the history of Christianity and in women's history. Given the close relationship of institutional religions and persistent patriarchy, the oppression of women is a central theme of the story.
2. Although some people interviewed for this video convey women's primary role in biblical times (and in the church at-large) as sexualized or demonized, the video fails to mention that biblical women were also "domesticized," or that this remains a primary image of women in contemporary time: women as nurturers, mothers, wives, domestic partners, or heads of households. Even if we accept the premise that such traditional roles diminish women, the absence of any acknowledgement of such roles suggests a blind spot or denial on the part of the writer or producer, and herein lies the program's greatest shortcoming. This further promotes a false dualism: the notion that women have two and only two choices-to be virgin or whore, saint or harlot. A different but related point is that this characterization also ignores critically important information about women in the life of Jesus, uncovered over the last three decades by feminist biblical scholars: that wealthy women, many of whom were widowed or single, financed much of Jesus' ministry. The video does not explore the possibility that Mary of Magdala may have been one such woman.
3. Worship and reflection resources recommended for this film include (a) the reflection by Rita Nakashima Brock; and (b) the Gnostic Scripture ("I am the first ... utterance of my name") which provides the opening words in Daughters of the Dust, and may be useful immediately following the film.
4. It may be helpful to review some of the literature about Mary Magdalen, especially biblical commentary written from a historical-critical perspective. Several such writings are referenced in this Facilitator's Guide. Whether or not you engage in such a survey, consider the following points as background for addressing questions from participants:
   1. Beyond awe, wonder, and mystery as primary sources of religion, memory, myth, and tradition are common expressions of religion. This is not to suggest that religions are not "true" since there are truths beyond the "facts" (or traditions) of every religion.
   2. So far as we know, most of the New Testament was written by men to serve both theological and social purposes. While there may have been some women biblical authors or contributors, such is not assumed in mainstream scholarship.
   3. The biblical cannon (commonly known as "the Bible") is not the only source of information about Mary Magdalen. In addition to the Synoptic Gospels' (Matthew, Mark and Luke) mention of Mary Magdalen as the only one associated with the empty tomb, her presence there is mentioned in the Non-Canonical Gospel of Peter. In addition, there is the so-called apocryphal source, The Gospel of Mary. Dr. Deirdre J. Good, a New Testament scholar, writes the following: The Gospel of Mary relates the encounter of the risen Jesus with Mary Magdalen. After a dialogue between them, Mary recounts her experience to the other disciples, including Peter and Levi. Peter questions the truth of Mary's encounter with Jesus: "Why would he speak to you?" he asks rhetorically. Mary denies that she has made up any of the story, and her part is taken by Levi, who accuses Peter of attacking Mary "just like the adversaries."
   4. Good concludes that "(t)he legitimacy of Mary's experience of the risen Christ is challenged by Peter, who may well represent the 'orthodox' position. Mary may well stand for the experiences of the communities in conflict with Peter and his heirs in what had become the dominant church."
5. For participants who may wish to explore Mary Magdalen further, the following are some entry points:
   • Watch Breaking the Waves, the next film featured in this series of Film as Theological Text.
   • Watch either of the following films, available on video: The Last Temptation of Christ; and Jesus Christ Superstar (with particular attention to Syreeta Wright singing "I Don't Know How to Love Him.")
   • View art about Mary Magdalen and Virgin Mary, particularly the cover artwork of the video Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait, Jean-Joseph Tailasson's "St. Mary Magdalen in the Desert," 1784 (Richard L. Feigen Collection, New York).
   • Create a work of art inspired by some aspect of Mary Magdalen's story, using chalk, watercolor, pen and ink, poetry, or drama, or write a poem, narrative, or short story.

Discussion Questions

1. How did watching Mary Magdalen: An Intimate Portrait make you feel emotionally?
2. Why do you think that Mary Magdalen's role in history inspires so many people in so many ways (for example, by artistic impressions and renderings about her)?
3. What do you think was the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalen? Could she have been one of the women ministering to him, as mentioned in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 27, verse 55?
4. Does saving souls for Christianity justify perpetuating a lie for the sake of something good-in this case, mercy, forgiveness, or redemption? What have been some of the consequences of Pope Gregory's interpretation of Mary Magdalen?
5. Is recasting Mary Magdalen as a prostitute instead of a disciple an example of male power over women's history and self-definition?
6. Have you seen examples (in your work life, for example) in which people in power have made incorrect judgments about you that are not questioned by those in authority but assumed to be true? If so, how have you handled such a situation?
7. What Unitarian Universalist Principles (or expressions of Unitarian Universalist theology) would make it difficult for a Pope (or any other authority figure) to make up a story that would be accepted as truth in our congregations?
8. The virgin/whore or saint/harlot is a classic patriarchal Christian literary convention. Do you see Mary Magdalen as caught in this dichotomy or not? Have you witnessed other women as vulnerable to this dualism?
9. Rock star Madonna built her career on blending the harlot-saint/virgin-whore image in her music and stage persona. What do you think Madonna is trying to convey, particularly in her audio and/or video rendition of "Like a Prayer"?
10. Does Unitarian Universalism include or embrace rituals of redemption and forgiveness? Can there be redemption without forgiveness?
11. If you are aware of historical figures who have been misrepresented (for institutional or political reasons), what has been the effect or consequence of that misrepresentation?
12. How relevant is Mary Magdalen's depiction as a saint or harlot for contemporary women? Consider, for example, women such as Monica Lewinsky, Hillary Clinton, Leona Helmsley, Mother Teresa, Greta Cammermeir, and/or Princess Diana.
13. Is there a double sexual standard in the religious and cultural interpretations of Mary Magdalen? Does a double sexual standard operate in the modern United States? In the world?
14. Classical gender stereotypes include the following: Women are too emotional. Ambitious men should be goal oriented and respected. Ambitious women must claw their way to the top. Assertive men are strong leaders. Assertive women are bitches. Angry men are powerful. Do these stereotypes hold any validity today?

Breaking the Waves
Distributors: Zentropa Entertainments, La Sept Cinema Films
Length: 159 minutes
Written and directed by Lars von Trier
Not rated. There is nudity, sex, and violence
Available on video (1996)

"Love is a mighty power."
--Jan, Breaking the Waves

Facilitator's Guide

1. The story line of Breaking the Waves is complex. Facilitators may need to screen the film more than once in conjunction with the facilitator’s guide and discussion questions in order to grasp some of the subtle nuances of the plot.
2. Even if you are intimately familiar with the film, facilitating a discussion of Breaking the Waves requires great sensitivity, particularly to participants who may have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse within the context of religious community. At minimum, you should create a safe space prior to showing the film. For example, there should be a mention of the fact that there are nudity, sex, and violence in the film. If you are a lay person without specialized training, you may wish to consult with a minister, psychologist, or others in the helping professions about how to address the discussion from a pastoral perspective. Alternatively, you may wish to co-facilitate this session with such a person.
3. If you are a minister, be prepared to bear witness to a participant’s confession, and if a participant desires to begin the process of addressing unresolved pain arising from a narrow interpretation of Christian doctrine or dogma, you might suggest that they begin a spiritual journal or letter writing process (not to be mailed) that can range from the general to the specific.
4. In addition, it may be tempting for some participants to blame institutional religion (Christianity in particular) for how Bess understood her choices (or lack of choice). Thus, it may be necessary to ask participants to be respectful of all religious traditions, not to generalize or make stereotypical assumptions.
5. A central -- perhaps the central-theme of Breaking the Waves is goodness. Feminist scholar Irena Makarushka, who thoroughly deconstructs competing perspectives of goodness as a moral category, reports that writer/director Von Trier states explicitly that in writing and producing the film, he “tried to represent the complex nature of goodness.” Thus emerges the film’s foundational theological questions: Who determines what goodness is-individuals or communities-and on what basis? What are the consequences of this choice? And does the choice enhance and affirm life or diminish and oppress the human soul?
6. The remainder of this facilitator’s guide will focus on the two competing perspectives introduced in the summary of the film, which will then serve as a framework for most of the discussion questions: (a) Bess as victim, an emotionally unstable and tragic victim of abuse by men (her husband, the men with whom she prostitutes herself, the minister and elders of the church), and (b) Bess as hero, one who embodies resistance, one who lives by her own will and exemplifies her own power and agency in spite of the community’s determination that obedience to their standards is equivalent to goodness.
   • Arguments in favor of viewpoint A: Bess as an emotionally unstable tragic victim
     1. Bess is morally naïve and has no ability to develop a mature relationship with herself, with others, or with God.
     2. Authority figures in the community (her mother and grandfather, the church elders) so deeply shaped Bess’s basic thought patterns, and thereby her actions, that she has no sense of self; she is totally enmeshed in Jan’s world-not her own.
     3. The dialogue between Dr. Richardson and the coroner following Bess’ death:

        "You have described the deceased as 'an immature, unstable person. A person, who, due to the trauma of her husband's illness, gave way in obsessive fashion to an exaggerated, perverse form of sexuality."' Hesitant and clearly uncomfortable, Dr. Richardson struggles to respond. At first he appears surprised at his own words and then he asks to amend the diagnosis: "... if you asked me now, instead of 'neurotic' or 'psychotic', my diagnosis might quite simply be ... 'good'." The bewildered coroner responds, "You wish the records ... to state that from the medical point of view the deceased was suffering from being 'good'? Perhaps this is the psychological defect that led to her death? Is that what we shall write." In the end, in spite of his own belief in Bess's goodness, Dr. Richardson reverts to his original diagnosis. Bess's choice to sacrifice her life for Jan is judged a perversion.

   • Arguments in favor of viewpoint B: Bess as hero, agent of her own will and desire
     1. As a necessity of living, Bess must express feeling. She is unable to hide her emotions and feelings. To do so would violate her understanding of what it means to be good. Her raw emotions-witnessed in her experience of sexual pleasure and in her conversations with God-lie bare for all to see. She is transparent, whether “too” honest or naïve, and in this way, is utterly humane-perhaps more than others in this community.
     2. Louise J. Kaplan argues that women in patriarchal societies face a no-win dilemma. She suggests that for women in particular, compliance with oppressive structures is a social rather than an individual form of perversion. Thus, women, in her view can never be “good enough.”
     3. The filmmaker offers this story as a biting cultural critique (albeit in the extreme) of the consequence of patriarchal, religious, and social oppression-a condemnation of the double standard that binds women to the most conservative interpretations of their purpose for being.
     4. Bess sacrifices her life for the sake of one she loves, and in this sense, can be understood as a Christ figure.

Discussion Questions

When I have facilitated discussions of this film, I have frequently asked one basic question, which leads seamlessly to other questions generated by viewers. My question is:

1. Who or what is responsible for Bess’s death? Is it the choices she makes? Is it her husband’s perverted motives, perhaps exaggerated by medication? Is it the church?

Other questions might include:
2. Is Bess emotionally unstable as Dodo suggests early in the film? Is Jan right that Bess is full of goodness and simply needs a space (a community) where she can be fully human, live to life’s fullest capacity?
3. How do you understand the theology of the community in which the story takes place?
4. How does Bess understand God? Is grace-the experience of radical acceptance-present at any point for Bess? Does the community’s religious understanding allow for unconditional love or for grace?
5. Considering that Bess is part of a religious community whose beliefs, norms and standards do not conform to her own, what choices are available to her following Jan’s accident?
6. What is unconditional love? Does it have limits? At the height of his illness (chapter 4), Jan says to Bess, “Love is a mighty power, isn’t it. If I forget love, then I die.” In light of his request, how do you understand Jan’s love for Bess? Similarly, Bess thinks of herself as her husband’s savior. Indeed he gets better and she dies. Is this level of self-sacrifice in fact love? Can her death, in any way, be compared to the death of a martyr, or of Jesus? Aren’t we called to care for ourselves as well as for others?
7. Given some interpretations of St. Paul’s text on suffering (Romans 5:1-5, see Appendix D), is suffering redemptive for women?
8. Louise Kaplan states,

   For a woman ... to explore and express the fullness of her sexuality, her ambitions, her emotional and intellectual capacities, her social duties, her tender virtues, would entail who knows what risks and who knows what truly revolutionary alteration to the social conditions that demean and constrain her. Or she may go on trying to fit herself into the order of the world and thereby consign herself forever to the bondage of some stereotype of normal femininity-a perversion, if you will.

   Using Kaplan’s premise, that dominant cultural expectations determine what is “good,” Irena Makarushka maintains that it is not women who are perverse but the social systems (including the church) that constrain women. Do you agree or disagree with Kalplan? Do women face a no-win dilemma when they try to behave within socially constructed norms? Shouldn’t communities have the right to set their own standards? If so, what is the role of the individual? Can individuals be self-determining in the context of community (without being exiled or getting killed?)

9. Irena Makarushka argues that there are no safe choices for women in patriarchal societies. She writes:

   In effect, “Bess embodies the conflict between two radically different ways of being ‘good’ in the world. On one hand, she wants to belong by being a ‘good’ girl, which under the conditions of patriarchy, requires submission and silence. On the other hand, when she chooses to be 'good' on her own terms, she is cast out by the church elders, her family, and community.”

   Do you agree or disagree with Makarushka’s position? What do you think Bess means when she says “I’ll be good, I’ll be really really good”?
10. What responsibility does a community have to its members, especially those who may be emotionally unstable? Should the community have provided an around-the-clock escort for Bess?
11. At the coroner’s hearing, Dr. Richardson argues that Bess “suffered from being good.” And yet, her “goodness” is not consistent with community standards. Rather, it is based on her implicit acceptance of the primary sources of authority (the minister, the church elders, and her husband), which, for the most part, are sustained by a system of patriarchy. What do you think Dr. Richardson means by his statement? (above) What is Dr. Richardson’s responsibility to Bess? Does he betray her by seeking to have her committed to a mental institution? Do you agree with Dr. Richardson’s diagnosis?