Milky Way, The: The Criterion Collection

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Emo Phillips told one of the funniest jokes about religion I have ever heard:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"

He said, "Like what?"

I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?"

He said, "Religious."

I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?"

He said, "Christian."

I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"

He said, "Baptist!"

I said, "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"

He said, "Baptist Church of God!"

I said, "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed
Baptist Church of God?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!"

I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879,
or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"

I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off.

It´s funny ´cause it´s true.

Spanish master Luis Buñuel beat Phillips to the punchline by a few decades with his scathing survey of the history of Catholic heresies in "The Milky Way" (1969). "The Milky Way" appears to be set in an alternate universe of sorts where, as a priest observes "The whole world is Catholic." Even the Muslims, and especially the Jews. Not only is everybody Catholic, but they spend all their free time arguing the finer points of Catholic dogma. The aforementioned priest explains to a skeptical police officer that the Eucharist does not merely "contain" the body of Christ as heathen scum like the Albigensians and the Pateliers once claimed, but that by the miracle of transubstantiation it is transformed into the body of Christ. This prompts the doubtlessly heretical question: "Once you swallow, what becomes of the Christ?" The priest has no answer for this; in fact, he has a sudden revelation that the Pateliers were right after all, after which is quickly whisked away to an insane asylum. In a later scene, a Jansenist literally duels with a Jesuit over the true nature of Grace.

Through this catechismic landscape wander two lonely pilgrims with the everyman names of Pierre (Paul Frankeur) and Jean (Laurent Terzieff). They´re on their way to the holy town of Santiago de Compostela where the remains of St. James are alleged to rest. They provide a grounding perspective for Buñuel constant juking and jiving through Catholic history, though their precise connection to events is not always certain/ The story jumps announced through time and space to observe "Great Moments in Heretical History" as well as surveying the modern world and its religion-obsessed denizens.

Buñuel had been assaulting narrative and spatial logic ever since he teamed up with Dali for "Un Chien Andalou" (1929), but the director´s surrealist imagination could never concoct anything as flat-out goofy as Catholic dogma itself. Buñuel and screen-writer Jean-Claude Carrière derive the film´s text largely not only from Scriptures but also from painstakingly researched histories of Catholic heresy. Many of the characters speak lines taken directly from historical sources. In one scene, a group of schoolgirls solemnly repeat a series of violations that mark a sinner as "anathema." Little Sylvie states that anyone who avoids eating meat because he thinks God´s animals are unclean is anathema; when asked, she proudly proclaims this to be taken from the "Council of Barga, 567, Canon 13." (True, though the year was 563, but Sylvie´s just a kid.)

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