The two problems I had with both films were these- the first, for non-Christians or non believers in HIM, there is not real entry portal to really get into the sympathy of the character of Mary. There were problems I had with Hail Mary, as I have stated, and when the film was over the recent religious film gaining hoopla came to mind- Gibson's Passion of the Jesus. There aren't many emotions outside of coldness between the supposed lovers Mary and Joseph, and scenes of a compulsively naked Roussel that inspire only one really memorable shot (I won't reveal it, but I found it freaky in how real it might have or might have not been). The rest of the film unfolds in a style that reminded me of what Godard did later on with Nouvelle Vague, where-in whenever images are presented that suggest that Godard (in another life outside of being a new-wave pioneer) been more fit in his later days to be directing nature documentaries as opposed to feature-length films. This sparks a rage in Joseph, and disillusionment in Mary, who can't figure out what to do with the situation. The story is fiddled through the Godardian consciousness as such: a teenage basketball player named Mary (Myriem Roussel), with a boyfriend who drives a Taxi named Joseph (Thierry Rode), is visited by a foul and entirely no non-sense uncle Gabriel (Philippe Lacoste, one of only two acting appearances ever) and told she will conceive God's child despite never having had sex with no one, including Joseph. By my account, though, Hail Mary isn't a great movie, a good movie, or a particularly engrossing account of the tale, despite the hype. It is Godard, after all, and outside of Weekend (a straight-up satire of the 60's radicalism and revolutionary air in France at the time), he hasn't tried to deliberately get people ticked off by his work. Whatever a viewer might take the film as, good or bad, it doesn't degrade or spit on the Christian religion and its eternally 'sacred' story of the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus.
I wouldn't compare Hail Mary to Last Temptation in controversy, since neither one really has anything to be controversial about. The religious right in America and abroad thought of the film as blasphemous (many said this before seeing this) and crude. After checking out a couple of Godard's eighties work (First Name: Carmen, which is a very good movie, and King Lear, which is one of the most fascinating, car-wreck adaptations of Shakespeare to come out of European cinema), I knew I had to check out Hail Mary, as by historical account got the kind of treatment that was almost bestowed on Last Temptation of Christ and Dogma.
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