Susan Granger’s review of “Bloodline” (Cinema Libre Studio)
Anything that questions the tenets of faith is immediately provocative and controversial and the hypothesis in Bruce Burgess’s “Bloodline” inflames the imagination and pushes the envelope.
This new documentary takes up where Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” left off, presenting evidence that may prove that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene not only married but their bloodline continued in the Languedoc region of southwestern France.
Traveling to the famed church at Rennes-le-Chateau, Burgess and Rene Barnett show the connections between the Church of Mary Magdalene, the Knights Templar and the threat from Opus Dei, utilizing clues in coded artworks with riddles and puzzles left by the priest Berenger Sauniere, who said he’d “found a tomb that could shake the Vatican to the core.”
Demonstrating initial skepticism, the filmmakers analyze artifacts and documents; reveal the discovery of a mummified female body draped in a white shroud with a distinctive red cross, along with relics and coins that were identified by the British Museum and biblical archeologists as dating from first-century Jerusalem; and interview two spokesmen from the secret society known as The Priory of Sion.
So what’s credible and what may be an elaborate hoax? You decide.
While the filmmakers acknowledge, “People sometimes prefer a lie to the truth,” what’s most intriguing, however, is the conjecture that this discovery could, in fact, presage the Second Coming by a further understanding and renewal of Christianity. As the filmmakers note: if Jesus did marry and have a family, that fact might humanize and amplify the significance of His teachings.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bloodline” is an enthralling 7. If you’re at all intrigued, go to www.thetombman.com – and there’s more to be revealed since further archeological excavation lies ahead.
