The Da Vinci Code

Sarah Barnett | 20 May 2006

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The Da Vinci Code
Rated M

Reviewed by Sarah Barnett

*** warning spoilers ***

Every thriller needs a villain. And although the one hauled off by police at the end of The Da Vinci Code is the murderous grail expert Leigh Teabing, he is scarcely the villain of the piece. Both the book and the film depict a far more sinister foe. The Church. Whether it’s the misogynistic early Church Fathers, the corrupt and violent medieval Christians or the extreme followers of Opus Dei - Christians, and the Church in general, are portrayed as ruthless, hypocritical and cruel.

After the curator of the Louvre, Jacques Sauniere, is murdered, visiting Harvard academic Robert Langdon becomes a prime suspect. Together with police cryptologist Sophie Neveu, Langdon embarks on a quest to clear his name and unravel the mysterious clues left by Sauniere before he died.

What they discover “proves” that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and left an heir. This secret has been guarded by the mysterious Priory of Sion while the Church has been trying to destroy the evidence for hundreds of years.

One of the most anticipated films of the past few years, The Da Vinci Code is a lavish production. Directed by Ron Howard and costing the film has an international cast including British thespian Sir Ian McKellan, French actors Jean Reno and Audrey Tautou, not to mention the ubiquitous Tom Hanks. But all of this window dressing will be irrelevant to most fans of the book. For them the question will be in the translation of book to screen, something that can and does fail even for accomplished filmmakers. Think Snow Falling on Cedars, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, The Cat in the Hat. So how does the film perform?

The main problem with the film - in movie terms - is its pacing (and Tom Hanks’ hair). The most successful thrillers are usually succinct tales with a gathering pace that culminates in a tense and edgy climax. Books require a different pacing. Dan Brown’s novel is frequently referred to as an airport novel but it has also been called a bus stop novel. The chapters are so short that they can generally be completed between stops. What has kept millions around the world turning the pages are Brown’s relentless cliffhanger endings at the conclusion of each chapter. But in bringing this to the screen, the narrative becomes almost episodic as the pace stops and starts according to Brown’s plot structure.

A further weakness lies in the dialogue. Words are the essence of literature but cinema deals in images. The long and complex historical and religious discussions that are peppered through Brown’s novel may be unusual for a book of this genre but they have proved fascinating to many. Indeed what is readily dismissed by historians of all religious persuasions as an outlandish conspiracy theory has sounded plausible to readers around the world. Director Ron Howard strives to make these didactic episodes as compelling and cinematic as possible mainly through “historical” flashbacks, yet the discussions still seem somewhat out of place in the context of a thriller such as this.

But for Christians most of this is ultimately irrelevant. The question that will be asked by most believers is how does the film treat Jesus and the Christian Church.

In this regard the film diverges slightly from the novel. Ron Howard has stressed that this is not a work of history. He has sought to avoid involvement in historical and religious debate by pointing to the genre in which he is working - namely fiction.

There seems to be a great desire from the filmmakers to emphasise the importance of Jesus. He is referred to as a great man. Even his healings seem to be accepted by Langdon at one point. The film develops a backstory for Langdon in which he suffers from claustrophobia after a childhood accident. As he tells Sophie he had thought he would die and as he waited to be rescued he prayed to Jesus and felt the presence of Jesus with him. That Jesus was special is not in doubt in this film. What the movie questions is his divinity. “Why does Jesus have to be human or divine?” asks Langdon. It’s a good question but the answer eludes him. What Christianity asserts and has always asserted is that Jesus is both human and divine. As one Sydney preacher has put it, ‘God with skin on’. But the sensibilities of The Da Vinci Code are uncomfortable with monotheistic belief. The ethos of the film is that there is something of the divine in each and every one of us.

While Jesus gets the thumbs up, the Church is definitely not to be trusted. Throughout the film Christian believers are shown to be violent, dishonest, duplicitous and corrupt. More interested in protecting itself than the truth, the Church - according to The Da Vinci Code - will stop at nothing to guard its position and keep humanity uninformed about Jesus’ true message.

Like the novel, the film champions the cause of the downtrodden, especially women. It would be disingenuous to deny that individuals Christians and organised Christian denominations have failed both God and mankind. Abuse of power, corruption, arrogance and faithlessness have sadly played a part in the history of the Church. While the allegation that thousands or millions of ‘strong minded’ women were killed by the church as witches is outrageously overblown, women have indeed been oppressed throughout history. But it would be a mistake to believe that all was
rosy until the formation of the Church. The censorship and suppression of women has formed part of virtually every cultural tradition. Ironically it was Jesus who raised the status and significance of women. Indeed as the Apostle Paul wrote “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”