In Roeg's "Don't Look Now", non-believer Sutherland pays the price by getting chopped up, and in this movie former-believer-but-now-non-believer Russell is "shown the way" by God and has her faith in God restored. She "sees the light", so-to-speak. It's a safe bet that Roeg doesn't think much of atheists: "Convert 'em or kill 'em" must be his credo, and also the message in these two films.
"C.H." is mysterious and quite ambiguous for quite a while, but then, unfortunately, more and more of the mysteriousness makes place for hardcore religious nonsense and the standard Christian stuff regarding the Virgin Mary. The message of the film is crystal-clear: God intervenes in Russell's life by saving her marriage and restoring her faith. Whether this wonderful God also saved Harmon is less certain; after all, the all-powerful Lord decided to kill him in the first place, and so bringing him back to life isn't exactly something that you can call an act of saving. (If you break a man's bicycle on purpose and then repair it, don't expect him to say thanks.) I at first thought that Russell was only imagining Harmon to still be alive (having perhaps stolen the corpse herself or imagined it being stolen), but once Talia Shire (the nun) tells Patton (the priest) in a confession booth that she has been having religious dreams about Russell for a long time, it then became clear that Roeg was going for a strictly by-the-numbers religious message, and not an ambiguous one free for interpretation.
Roeg is no intellectual. I assume that the chances are very slim indeed that Roeg ever did or will ever make a film in which a God-fearing believer becomes a non-believer. That much is certain.
I liked the thing Patton said to Russell at one point, and its obvious implications: he told her that Satan doesn't have the power over life and death, but that only God has it. Translation/Conclusion: Satan cannot do real evil, only God can. Now what kind of a God are they all worshiping then? They should pray that Satan takes over the Heavens and somehow gets rid of this God, which would mean that God wouldn't have the power anymore to cause all the damage that he does using this logic. But then we'd have over-population. It's a strange dilemma...
Okay, so I am poking a bit of fun at the film's religious aspects and all the illogic and absurdity that they tag along with them, but the film is still solid. It would have been better had it not sought to hide like a coward in the religious corner, using tired old clichés like frantic nuns, philosophical priests, and that mighty thunder in the sky that seems to be an oft-employed method by God of relaying messages to his fearful flock.
"C.H." is mysterious and quite ambiguous for quite a while, but then, unfortunately, more and more of the mysteriousness makes place for hardcore religious nonsense and the standard Christian stuff regarding the Virgin Mary. The message of the film is crystal-clear: God intervenes in Russell's life by saving her marriage and restoring her faith. Whether this wonderful God also saved Harmon is less certain; after all, the all-powerful Lord decided to kill him in the first place, and so bringing him back to life isn't exactly something that you can call an act of saving. (If you break a man's bicycle on purpose and then repair it, don't expect him to say thanks.) I at first thought that Russell was only imagining Harmon to still be alive (having perhaps stolen the corpse herself or imagined it being stolen), but once Talia Shire (the nun) tells Patton (the priest) in a confession booth that she has been having religious dreams about Russell for a long time, it then became clear that Roeg was going for a strictly by-the-numbers religious message, and not an ambiguous one free for interpretation.
Roeg is no intellectual. I assume that the chances are very slim indeed that Roeg ever did or will ever make a film in which a God-fearing believer becomes a non-believer. That much is certain.
I liked the thing Patton said to Russell at one point, and its obvious implications: he told her that Satan doesn't have the power over life and death, but that only God has it. Translation/Conclusion: Satan cannot do real evil, only God can. Now what kind of a God are they all worshiping then? They should pray that Satan takes over the Heavens and somehow gets rid of this God, which would mean that God wouldn't have the power anymore to cause all the damage that he does using this logic. But then we'd have over-population. It's a strange dilemma...
Okay, so I am poking a bit of fun at the film's religious aspects and all the illogic and absurdity that they tag along with them, but the film is still solid. It would have been better had it not sought to hide like a coward in the religious corner, using tired old clichés like frantic nuns, philosophical priests, and that mighty thunder in the sky that seems to be an oft-employed method by God of relaying messages to his fearful flock.