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The Big Question review
:. Director: Francesco Cabras & Alberto Molinari
:. Genre: Documentary
:. Running Time: 1:16
:. Year: 2004
:. Country: Italy
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Shot on location during the filming of The Passion of the Christ, The Big Question tries to figure out what God is through interviews with the cast and crew of Mel Gibson's film.
The documentary is made of several chapters corresponding to specific questions about God and beliefs in general.
Logically opening with a pretty animated Mel Gibson who, speaking with his hands, looks more Italian than the rest of the cast, the film then leads us to various members from the cast and crew—mostly extras dressed for the part and standing in front of the set. Men and women from all ages, races and social classes answer the questions candidly, often with a—intentional or not—humoristic tone, giving their own version of the divine. Even though a couple of priests are also interviewed, the object of The Big Question isn't about finding a definitive answer but rather to offer different visions filtered through various cultural and religious backgrounds. The microcosm chosen obviously isn't representative but it certainly gives the ensemble an interesting post-modern twist.
A wild dog walking through the set brings some kind of esoteric note, like a metaphor for God passing through the soul of all the interviewees. Directors Francesco Cabras and Alberto Molinari have paid close attention to the visual aspect of the documentary, giving it a very artistic look. It's obvious that with such a deep subject they have been trying to distance their work from the usual dry and boring documentaries. An approach, which works for the most part, despite the fact that the film tends to drag with too many questions. Even though I'm sure the order of the questions wasn't chosen randomly, the result looks anarchic and unfocused at times, as the questions seem to go back and forth between themes, rather than adopting a more logical approach.
Except for Gibson and Monica Bellucci, we might regret that the documentary focused on supporting roles and that Jesus himself (Jim Caviezel) only made a cameo; we can assume that he was too intensively involved in his role to have time to question his own existence.
Fortunately, the filmmakers avoided the trap of a diverting behind-the-scenes look and stuck to their subject, never attempting to give us a look at the shooting of The Passion of the Christ for pure entertainment purposes.
As for the big question, there is obviously not one big answer but several perspectives, the film underlining that whatever the religion—Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism or Islam, there seems to be one divine being whose name varies, depending on belief.
Fred Thom
 Movie Reviews: 1998 - 2011
Movie Reviews: 2012 - present
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