Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on “The Ornithologist,” a movie that is not endearing to Catholics:
“The Most Blasphemous Movie of the Year.” That is how a reviewer in the Daily Beast puts it. This is rather presumptuous: we are only half way through 2017.
The movie opens with Fernando, who is a stand-in for St. Anthony of Padua, hanging out by a remote river in northern Portugal looking for endangered black storks. He calls his boyfriend on his cell phone (never mind that the setting is the 13th century), telling him how much he loves him and that he received the reminder to take his medication.
So what meds would a gay birdman take in the Middle Ages? In an interview with the Village Voice, the writer-director João Pedro Rodrigues says, “He could be taking medications because he’s HIV positive.” That’s a safe bet.
Then the birdman’s boat capsizes, leaving him unconscious. Lucky for him along come two Chinese missionaries to rescue him. Unlucky for him, the gals strip him to his underwear, “his body hanging upright from a tree via ropes that are wrapped around his entire body—including, in a particularly uncomfortable manner, his genitals.” That would hurt. The gals then promise to castrate him the next day. That would hurt worse.
The Chinese gals are quite contemporary for 13th-century females. “Like good Christian girls, we sleep together.” After they have sex, Fernando meets a deaf-mute goat shepherd named Jesus. Predictably, they have sex on the beach. Not sure whether this is before or after Fernando is urinated on by those nasty pagans.
There is plenty of violence and gore to this “deliriously homoerotic” movie, so those attracted to kinky fare will not be disappointed. Speaking of which, it would make for a splendid segment on “60 Minutes” to interview a sample of moviegoers who like this film. Chances are we would all conclude that they really are different.
