Movie Reviews
Creators of Bloodline Battle Skepticism
Greg Kaczynski |
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 In the Egyptian Theatre off Hollywood Boulevard, I recently had the opportunity to interview the director and producer of Bloodline (Bruce Burgess and Rene Barnett, respectively). Bloodline is a new documentary which investigates the possibility of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene (maybe with a daughter, Sara) having escaped to the south of France after his crucifixion and living the rest of their lives in peace. This is a widely held belief in that area of France, but the conspiracy took the world-wide spotlight more recently with the publication of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and the subsequent Tom Hanks movie of the same name.
The theory states that after the crucifixion (if it even happened), the disciples took Christ down from the cross and hid him away in his “tomb.” After leaving him there to recover, Mary Magdalene stole him away and they fled to an area of France known as Rennes-le-Chateau. In that village, Mary and Jesus continued their teachings about living with love and respect for others. Eventually they died, and their bodies are said to be buried in the area.
Early on in the interview Burgess challenged himself, relating an anecdote when someone asked how he knows Jesus Christ even existed in the first place. He responded by saying that his team “set out on the back of Dan Brown. He had put forward this notion of the marriage and the Priory [of Sion], and I think [did Jesus exist] is a very interesting film.” However, he cited that there are many scholarly works already out there that suggest that Jesus of Nazareth exists merely as a “figment of various people’s imagination.”
“You’ve got to pick your evidence and choose which way you’re going to go because it’s all very inconclusive,” he said.
 During the course of Bloodline, Burgess speaks at length with members of a secret society known as the Priory of Sion, a society that claims to hold the secrets of Christ’s bloodline. Specifically, Nic Haywood is on display as spokesperson of the Priory, speaking in cryptic riddles and warnings, grinning eerily and seeming to enjoy the game of cat and mouse he plays with Burgess.
This film will clearly be received with its share of skepticism and Burgess and Barnett are well aware of this. When asked about Nic Haywood and his peculiar, Bond villain-esque persona, after Barnett quipped that they found him through Central Casting, Burgess contended that he’s actually quite “understated and credible,” then unexpectedly compared him to his predecessor, Pierre Plantard, who is widely acknowledged as being a fraud and shyster. Burgess, however, stands by his man, stating that they did their research, found that he wasn’t just a “checkout teller at Tesco’s,” and since they came in without their own agenda and gave Haywood the room to tell his story, they were able to snag the secrets that they became privy to.
Burgess also teams up with an amateur treasure hunter known as Ben Hammott (“The Tomb Man” in anagram), whose Web site claims he’s found a tomb hidden away in the hills of Rennes-le-Chateau that contains a form covered by a cloth marked by a large, red cross reminiscent of that worn by the Crusaders. The form, he suspects, is a corpse that could possibly be Mary Magdalene.
 While also not quite vouching for Hammott, he recalled how Ben never offered a “tell” that he was doing this for the money or the fame. He asserts that he is just an ex-DJ, a “geezer for England” who wanted to find some treasure.
“Just because we’re regular Joes,” Burgess insisted, “I don’t think that should have any affect on the importance of the find, and I think history is on my side.”
Burgess called the work that they do in Bloodline “amateur archeology” and admitted that because of this lack of expertise, the film will receive (and has already received) much criticism. Yet, he argued they had to find out what was in the tomb, if it even was a corpse, before they contacted any officials and got them involved. He again remarked that those who have changed the world have been “amateur archeologists” and not the stuffy professors and professionals who sit behind their desks with their credentials only wanting the credit.
The next step, Burgess said, is to do an actual, official excavation of the tomb, and with the production of this documentary, he’s obtained enough clout to get the French government interested in an official dig. The hope is that it will happen before the end of the year. Once they get in there, they can then do a “proper full-scale forensic analysis of the corpse, which will give detailed DNA, and at that point [they] can start looking at teeth and everything else.” Perhaps it is Mary Magdalene.
Regardless of whether or not this theory reads as plausible history or out-of-this-world fiction, the idea of a dig into an ancient tomb is always exciting, harkening back to the historic finds of King Tut’s Tomb and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is unfortunate that Bloodline is being distributed before the finds are closely examined, but Burgess said they were out of money and it had to be finished.
 It’s an intriguing puzzle, but after all the questions, viewers are still left with a maverick filmmaker who has made films about Bigfoot, Area 51 and UFOs, and who alleges that all the people he’s interviewed are normal and believable. One has to wonder if Bruce Burgess does have his own silent agenda, being a slightly disgruntled ex-member of the Church of England, or if he’s just gullible. Maybe he’s right and skepticism runs high--the amount of evidence needed to change most peoples’ minds on these topics is astronomical, and the public just isn’t ready to accept the possibility that Jesus never died on the cross. Admittedly, he talks about Bloodline with humility, acknowledging that they don’t exactly know what they’ve found, but it is something that cannot be dismissed.
Bloodline opens May 16 at Laemmle’s Sunset 5. Don’t miss an exclusive Q&A with its filmmakers, Bruce Burgess and Rene Barnett, May 16-17 after the 7 p.m. shows and May 18 after the 4 p.m. show.
For more information, visit bloodline-themovie.com.
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