Ramon's "Roman movie" analysis: A frustrating masterpiece

[justarandomguy]

The reception to Ramon reuploading "The passion of the christa" in UHD with more extras must have been successful, because a little more than a month after, on February 15 of 2023 he uploaded an HD version of what could be his second most known work so far, Roman Movie.
After giving this movie another try, and learning a lot of coincidences, I decided to do some research and analysis of this production.

I'm not as familiar with the christa film, one that I have watched so many times I even memorized almost every detail, I think I still have a lot of interesting things to share about this. I don't know how often can I post, so apologies in advance if I take my time on making a new post on this topic.

Without further ado, let's begin.

A frustrating masterpiece
Introduction: A tale of coincidences and letdowns
​

Oddly enough, I start these POAG analysis threads on the anniversary month of the film. On september of 2023, I started the Passion of the christa thread, video that was uploaded on September 4th, 2005. And now, our story begins with the weird fact that Roman Movie's original release date could be traced to February 23, 2008, at least that's the earliest date related to the production I could find, specifically on the youtube video where Ramon uploaded a trailer that by some sort of miracle is still up to the date of this post, which is part 1 of Roman movie.
That's a triple coincidence, I revisit this film on February of 2024, which was reuploaded in HD in February of 2023 and is highly likely to have been originally released in February 2008.
Is it really a coincidence? Who cares, it's a good excuse to discuss this film.

After discovering christa and Ramon's passion of a goddess project, I stumbled upon the roman movie trailer and pictures on the deviantart page. Christa was good, but there was an outdoors movie? WHAT?! It took me a lot of time to finally watch this film, every day I didn't watch it I got more and more hyped. The arrest hooked me and made my mind go crazy and imagine what could happen in the rest of the movie that I couldn't get at the time. The day I finally got to watch it from beginning to end I had mixed feelings. I saw a lot of good stuff but I couldn't help but get disappointed. "That's it?" I thought as the movie ended.

With that context in mind, just in case, let's recap this film, shall we?
Roman movie is quite a unique production in Ramon's repertoire. It's his second outdoors film, and the only one that is still up... sort of... let me explain.

There was another one with a model/actress in some sort of forest, even Ramon shared in cruxfoundation the fun fact that she was catholic and felt weird doing it. It was unique in it's own right, it was of the few of Ramon's films that had dialogue, it featured unseen stages of the cross, the condemned being offered a drink on the cross and the stabbing on the side. On the other side, it was quite cheesy on the roman soldier dialogues, and it was pretty short. Even now, there is a missing whipping scene that is long gone, the only way to find any trace of this film is at the bonus stuff of "Crucifixion in Dark UHD version", which has no trace of mentioned whipping scene.

Maybe Ramon wasn't too proud of this work, that's why it's not too easy to find it.
It has merit that Ramon decided to take a second outdoors production, and this one promised a lot.

The production itself is quite simple, sharing a similar structure to Passion of the christa:
Ten minute video, divided into five parts showing the stages of cross.
Surprisingly, Roman movie did a thing that not a single other production Ramon has made: An arrest scene.
It's really good, it hooks you in.

The video is structured with an arrest, whipping, carrying, nailing and death on the cross scenes, each part being around two minutes long. Funny how many parallels it shares with Passion of the christa, yet Roman movie is mostly remembered as a disappointing film. But why exactly? How did we get to this? We will figure this out in another part.

For now, the next part will be diving into more details of the film itself, and checking what worked, and what didn't.
Stay tuned!

 

[justarandomguy]

I have to apologize in advance if at some point I go crazy on a rant, but like I said in the title, this is a frustrating masterpiece, so it isn't exactly easy to hold the need to yell "WHY?" at the screen. Besides that, let's get going.

A frustrating masterpiece
Part I: A recap of Roman movie

I had to rent this one again to work on this analysis, the HD version specifically, since in my opinion, the bonus stuff is enough to justify the price tag, at least enough to not feel scammed (I'm looking at you 5 second bonus video from "Woman on crucifix"... again...).
One bonus video for each of the five chapters of the video being 7-16 minutes long (the whipping is once again the longest bonus video), I find it to be really worth it, it's as if Ramon uploaded almost all of the raw footage. This will be important for later, so let's put a pin on that.

But the main video... man the upscaling did not give it any favors. I don't know what witchcraft Ramon did to make the (probably AI) upscaling in the UHD christa video to look pretty good. Maybe it could be the indoors setting, because holy cheesy macaroni, the upscaling in the HD Roman movie is way, WAY too distracting. There are certain points at which the upscaling didn't know what the hell to do and just went nuts on what to change, even making nightmare fuel sometimes.

Don't open the following attachment if you want to sleep tonight, you've been warned.

(wanna know how I got these scars?)

I will get a little ahead of myself, and I will just say that the problem is really likely to be that Ramon took the already published version of Roman movie, which was in a low quality due to the limitations of the internet back them (man I feel old), especially the web hosting, which isn't exactly cheap, so he had to really lower the quality to not spend a kidney on the hosting of passionofagoddess.com or the deceased femalechristinarts.com. More on this topic for another post, let's get back to recapping.

I said in another thread that the arrest scene was really long, but upon rewatch, it's actually got good passing, the length works in favor of the video, it creates suspense, anticipation for what we know will come next. Even if some of the dialogue or acting can feel a little cheesy, it's pretty mild and doesn't overstay it's welcome, so you can just shrug at it and keep going.

The arrest has all the elements of this stage of the via crucis, summarized in small but effective actions like the kiss. Also, I have not given the actress the credit she deserves, I will praise her more on another post, but for now we can say she genuinely pulls out surprise and concern without overacting it. That and oddly enough, she looks like she was expecting it, yet dreading it, like the story it was based on.
The arrest has these short lines of dialogue, kind of in your face about Ramon's project ("Are you the female christ?", "Yes I am", "You are arrested", "Are you the queen of the free people?", "Yes I am", "Whip and crucify her"... man, the actress or whoever dubbed her only said the same line twice), but I appreciate the fact that he decided to work the audio from scratch, since he would normally just slap a music loop without anything more... well, there is a music loop, but there are sound effects and dialogue, it's a more than welcome addition, even if the accents sound a little goofy, but let's cut it some slack, maybe* they were not native english speakers. But quick note, is it me or the actress representing Pilate sounds a little British? Wait, they gender swapped everyone but the guards... huh... sorry, got off topic.

Well, then we go to the whipping. The fact that the film began with the actress fully dressed hyped me up knowing that we would get the rarely, if not, never depicted stripping of the condemned part. While all of the other female crucifixion videos, at least the roman styled ones, start with the model already stripped naked or with just a loincloth, here they added clothing. This perfectly achieves a thing that I believe improves anything related to films: Contrast.
To add to the downward spiral of suffering and humiliation, how do you start? With a fully clothed wise looking actress, which will only make the difference between this moment and her being hung almost naked on the cross stronger, and giving more power to the latter.

The whipping had the odd choice of making the guards grabbing her wrists, extending them and letting a third guard do the whipping. I don't know how you manage to not hit your fellow soldiers, but it oddly works, at least for me. It's curious how the actress looks as confused as me when I saw that they were not going to bound her to anything, just hold her by the wrists. But well, she still manages to keep that surprise and dread persona even while knowing her fate, which is not easy to achieve, since one could easily fall into the way too surprised or way too stoic areas. Her slowly getting lower and lower to the ground as she goes from standing up to almost laying face down on the floor adds to that downfall aspect.

Then the crowning comes in, with the nice detail of the guard using a cloth in one hand to hold the crown of thorns. Let me say that this crown of thorns may be my favorite, it looks messy, harsh, raw, big, improvised on the moment to add insult to injury, again, like in the story it's based on. I love to think that the crown is bigger than her head as if you were to symbolize that her burden is way bigger than her, a heavy cargo on her shoulders, or well, head in this case, but that is my interpretation.


Then comes the carrying... and this is one of the low points sadly. The two guards helping her carry the cross are fully visible in all the scene, and it really takes out of the suffering aspect. To play devil's advocate, it could be that they didn't want two things: One the cross dragging too much dust, the landscape looks like the kind of dirt that pulls out a ton of dust that would be uncomfortable for the actors and maybe bring continuity problems. Two, they wanted to make sure the actress was safe. Granted, the cross doesn't look as heavy others, like the one in the christa video (to be fair, that one had a hidden cart that helped make that carrying easy and not scratch the floor), but it could still hurt badly the actress under the wrong circumstances. It's a pity, since the ingredients to make this a perfect carrying scene were there, but then again, I can also understand that they had to ensure the actress' safety.
Also, this shot, this detail of her dragging, almost grabbing the dirt, adding to her feeling of being in pain.


Then comes the high point of the film, the nailing. Even if it doesn't have the practical effects like fake hands or anything like that, it more than makes up for it with other things. First of all, the final stripping. While the fact that she had her tunic back for the carrying could bring split opinions, that choice is more than worth it to show her being ripped off her tunic one last time before being nailed, and I say without doubt, this moment is perfect. The shots, the actress' expressions, the guards being not so gentle, the way she is laid on the cross, even the dubbing of the actress' voice in distress, it's all worth of a chef's kiss, mwua.

Another odd choice was to tie her wrists to the cross, something that's also not seen often, but I may have an explanation later on this post. They made closer shots of her distress as her wrists are tied up, which are also beau-ti-ful. We could get into the nails in the wrists debate, but the ropes can ease it. Also, they could be there to help the actress stay safe up on the cross. This time there are no hooks for her to grab onto, and the footrest for her is even smaller than others, she is almost quite literally, hanging.

The hiccup here is the shots of her from the top, which look kind of amateur-ish, but that's just me nitpicking a lot. Heck, she even moves her legs, which to me at least, shows even more her increasing panic. Since her arms are held in place, she must take out her fear in other ways, right? And her breathing, it may sound dumb, but even that detail portrays perfectly the dread of knowing the nails come next. The tying the ropes may be a little longer than it should, but to me, it's a perfect build up to the nailing.

While the nailing itself doesn't look as convincing as the one in christa, and man I wish they had a fake hand prop, they could have used it in some shots, it does the work. I also appreciate that they showed the soldiers adjusting her feet one on top of the other, and even a small detail sneaked into the final cut that just improves the scene.

A bug is moving on her leg, take that how you want, but it adds a more raw feeling, it makes the film more immersive, you remember that the environment could be harsh, a bug can get on you and you could do nothing with all your extremities bound to a cross. It's just a bug casually moving on her leg, yet it adds this sweet detail.
Finally, they raise her, but they can only do it halfway before they cut to black.

Again, it would be really hard to make the full raising without risking the actress, so guess I will keep dreaming of a cross raising scene where the violent drop of the cross on the hole where it will be secured also shakes the condemned, with a sudden switch to her shoulders doing heavy lifting, marking the beginning of her weight being held by her arms.

Oddly enough, her feet now appear nailed each one separately, side by side. This continuity error distracted me a lot, more if you add that I like more the two feet pierced by a single nail detail. My theory is that they must have realized last minute that the actress would have a hard time staying up on the cross if she had one feet on top of the other, so having them side by side could give her more balance.

And then comes... *sigh* the lowest point of the film. The suffering scene, or rather, her death on the cross. It would be decent as her final moments, but not as her suffering. Again, devil's advocate, if she moved more, emoted, went up and down for air, or breathed as intensely as christa, maybe she could have an accident, the only thing between her and a violent fall to the floor irl is just two ropes and her feet. Yet I still believe this can be fixed in a thing we will discuss more on a next post: editing. For now let's just say that there are 3 shots that are dragged way too long, making the lack of emoting more evident.

To be fair, the actress pulled out a bold move, all the risks that were avoided in the last parts, I have big respect for her on the fact that she allowed all of her dead weight to lean forward, no sticking her back to the cross, just fully trusting the ropes and her feet being pushed toward the footrest. Not to take credit off her for her great acting, but this risky stunt deserves more praise, as if something went wrong, the harsh terrain would have resulted in serious injuries, yet she pushed forward to do this.

It would be a perfect ending... and even then, you get pulled off the immersion by this weird "The end" card that pops out of nowhere while abruptly disrupting the pacing. It doesn't help that it looks... out of place, as if it was slapped just because it was a cool visual effect/transition that was by default on the editing software.

You could make a stretch that it kind of looks like a stained glass from a church? And enhances the criticism of the church part of Ramon's project? But that is just overthinking... a lot.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember this not being in earlier versions of the film, and it was way better. Heck, this card even blocks a cool visual effect of thunder they added, WHY???? I get Ramon is more of a social anthropology / teacher man and not a filmmaker, but... why this change? Just WHY?

Sigh, like I said, this is a frustrating masterpiece, the bottle was almost struck by the lightning... almost, it fell just 30cms at the side of it (or one feet for any Americans in the forum), but not in it.

Next post will be diving into more details about what worked and what didn't and how I think this film has hope and could be saved. It's a diamond in the rough, and surprisingly, we could polish it until it became a perfect female crucifixion video, getting toe to toe with the passion of the christa or even surpassing it by just a bit.
Just keep in mind, we are comparing pears to apples, since one is an indoors film and another one is outdoors, they both shine in their own rights.

Also, unrelated note that I don't know when will I have a chance to share, so screw it, while looking at the wayback machine for the passionofagoddess site, some dates show that the name of the page in the tab at the top says "woman crucified fetish crucifixion art video female Christ crucificada... yada yada yada...". It looks like it could be the tags of the website, but I can't shake the fact that it has the word "fetish" there. Kind of a tangent off the whole art and church criticism topic, but maybe it's just a tag to help the page appear on search results and I'm just overthinking again.

Anyways, I'll see you on the next post.

As always
Stay tuned!

 

[thehangingtree]

Also, unrelated note that I don't know when will I have a chance to share, so screw it, while looking at the wayback machine for the passionofagoddess site, some dates show that the name of the page in the tab at the top says "woman crucified fetish crucifixion art video female Christ crucificada... yada yada yada...". It looks like it could be the tags of the website, but I can't shake the fact that it has the word "fetish" there. Kind of a tangent off the whole art and church criticism topic, but maybe it's just a tag to help the page appear on search results and I'm just overthinking again.

Anyways, I'll see you on the next post.

As always
Stay tuned!

Since these are movies made for purchase, Tree recommends your reviews are done in the 'links to paysites' and not on the general site.

 

[justarandomguy]

Since these are movies made for purchase, Tree recommends your reviews are done in the 'links to paysites' and not on the general site.

Didn't think of it that way honestly, I thought it was a discussion but that makes sense. Sorry for this.

 

[thehangingtree]

Didn't think of it that way honestly, I thought it was a discussion but that makes sense. Sorry for this.

You are ok with the comments, I just think they would be more appropriate on the 'links to paysites' section.

 

[justarandomguy]

You are ok with the comments, I just think they would be more appropriate on the 'links to paysites' section.

Thanks for the suggestion... I can't change the thread to the links to paysites section myself, right?
Well, I'll keep this in mind for a next review, thanks again

 

[justarandomguy]

A frustrating masterpiece
Part II: What holds this film back
I always found curious how this film being really unique it's one that doesn't have the "experimental" tag on the title.
There is always a risk-reward factor, and I have to praise Ramon and the team for taking quite a risk. But why? What didn't work exactly.

Some smaller issues could be the ones I mentioned in the last post, but they can be excusable, like the cross being carried by the actress and two guards, or the actress not emoting too much on the cross. Oddly enough, I haven't complained about original sound, since I find the audio kind of cheesy in the final product, but this also is justified.

Because it was filmed outdoors, and by examining the footage, you can tell that wind was kind of strong, so I can't complain about not having original sound, since you need special equipment to deal with that, also, I don't think they had the budget to hire the man who holds the microphone on top of of the actors, and that's saying a lot, since this film has way more staff than the average POAG production, 6 actors and who knows how many other crew members.

I already went point by point on the film, so let's get to the big issue I think holds this film back, independently of production/budget limitations or individual tastes like nailing positions or loincloth/naked.
Roman movie's biggest issue is a seven letter word: Editing.
Let me explain it.

The film divided into five episodes of around two minutes each is what hurts it the most. This movie should have been at least 12 minutes long, and trust me, those two extra minutes could have made a difference.
The two minutes per part average is a great length, it brings a great pacing that already showed it can work in other Ramon films, like Crucifixion in dark I, If you were Jesus, passion of the christa, etc.
There is a huge difference tho, Roman movie introduced an arrest scene. If the film keeps a 10 minute length, then it's inevitable that either one part will have to me shorter or even completely removed. Like I stated before, the part that one feels is missing is a suffering on the cross scene, where the condemned struggles, cries, etc. This crucial scene, which is practically the main dish in this kind of videos, being cut so badly, it's the main thing that hurts this film.

And to make things worse, this was the part with the least editing, having shots that last long... like, really long, like, way longer than they should. This makes the pacing feel like it's getting stuck, and while a long shot could make an impact when used correctly, this was not the case, this scene felt really stale, almost competing with the blue night video (well, that's an overstatement, blue night is a 16 minute slideshow, but you get the point).

Upon watching the behind the scenes of part five of the film, there are almost 7 minutes of footage that could be used. Granted, there are a lot of parts that you can't use due to them being raw footage, but even then I think you can save around 4 minutes of that footage, and with some smart editing, bring out the two parts this film deserves, a suffering, and a death scene, or even put them together. After all, this is Ramon's film with the most visual effects added in editing (more into that in the next part with behind the scenes fun facts).

With today's tools, we can figure out a rough idea of how to fix the 5th act issue. Switch more often between shots, and while a lot of the raw footage, especially the one where the actress emotes more has a shaking camera problem, you can still use it, either using a camera stabilizer tool (like the one in after effects for example) or just go with the flow and use the camera shaking to your advantage, as if it emphasized the condemned's view getting blurrier as she slowly loses her life. Granted, she isn't constantly breathing heavily and getting up and down like christa, crying a lot like in dark I, or grunting in pain like if you were Jesus, but she does emote, in line with her "expecting this, but still suffering act". The editing is what didn't do her justice, and if you switched more often and used these scrapped shots, we could in theory improve this last crucial scene.

Having this in mind, I have another thing that could fix this film, also involving the editing, but in the audio department.
The film uses a piece of music that thankfully, isn't out of place and annoying. Well, the latter isn't really true, since it plays non stop for the whole 10 minutes of the film. Some sounds might feel weird, like the actress' sounds of pain added in the editing not quite fitting or being out of sync. Those do the work, they aren't a big problem, but if there is something I'm not a big fan at all, is using the exact same whip sound on the scourging scene over and over again.

The repetitive sound is easy enough, just add variation, or do a "condemned getting her view blurry due to the pain" effect, with a muffled sound of the whip. A reference would be the Omaha scene in Saving Private Ryan, where the main character is in a state of shock.

And the music, you don't need to have a film composer make 45 tracks of music for you, for that you have the power of "silence".
Just imagine it, how more impactful would that final shot of the death on the cross if there was no music, just the sound of the wind.


This film can be saved, it can unlock it's full potential, and while there are details we just can't do anything about, the editing can do some heavy lifting and make this, all the efforts of the crew, Ramon, the actress, all of it, the masterpiece it deserves to be.

Next part, we will go with some fun facts and behind the scenes stuff!
Hmm, also, it feels odd to keep calling her "actress" or "condemned".
What about we call her for her name...?

...Rosa

Stay tuned!

 

[justarandomguy]

A frustrating masterpiece
Part III: Fun facts

We can make the frustrating part aside, and talk about some fun stuff now!
First of all, Rosa, our actress, is also a goofball!

...I think, there are fewer instances of her messing around on the behind the scenes, but hey, being able to see these moments of the people taking themselves less serious is always welcome.

I can't help but wonder if this film was made in one or two days, since the raw footage doesn't to seem as much, but who knows, maybe if I looked more closely every detail I could figure that out. Funny enough, there are some more noticeable production elements seen in the behind the scenes, probably because it's not a fully dark indoors background. These elements show that this movie had way more budget than other of Ramon's films, I even dare that, at least concerning the female christ / roman crucifixions, it was the highest budget film until Jac Avila's Seditiosa.


The practical effects done during the recording aren't too crazy, but there are some interesting details still. For the scourging, this is an obvious thing to say, but kudos to the actress also getting hit by the whip. I can't help but wonder what material they use, because the soldier actor swings the whip convincingly enough, yet Rosa seems to have little to no harm.

Side note, how do they always make crowns of thorns that seem so convincing? That thing looks painful to wear, I doubt it's a real thing... right?

On the topic of the tunic, Rosa had a special tunic made for this film. While the red fabric seems pretty standard, the white tunic has a special feature of having a velcro, allowing them to take as many shots as they needed for the stripping scenes, while also allowing the tunic look like it's being violently ripped. It's a simple, but really effective solution.

The practical nails this time were different. I don't remember which video it was, but it was shown that the nails were a different deal than the hooks for the actress to hold onto. The nails were a special prop that would have a hook of it's own that would be hidden with "blood". It could be between two fingers while also being attached to the hand. Well, they didn't use this on Roman movie, probably because of the location, topic I will touch on later on the post. Basically, there were just some sort of flat "nail heads" that would just be on top of Rosa's palm. The problem was that they seemed to fall quite often off her hands.


I mentioned this is the film that uses the most VFX, or visual effects. By this I mean things done in the editing room, not too crazy, but still useful. First of all, the stages of the via crucis from the carrying onwards were recorded in a more cloudy environment. To avoid continuity, with some color correction, ta-da, the events seem to take place in the same day, making it look like a hot arid environment, kind of like what they do in big productions when they wanna show that something takes place in México, but not that intense. This also makes for a wonderful contrast with the last part where the clouds make the death on the cross more dramatic. Oh, and they added a lightning... it was hidden by a "The end" card on the final cut, but I already complained about that, still, the lightning is a great addition.

Then, it seems that by making the image brighter than it actually was, they managed to hide the cables that can be seen in the background of the behind the scenes.
Here is where my location topic shows up. Spoiler alert: Rosa is an actress/playwright from Spain, involved in cinema and mostly theater (man, is it a coincidence that Bruna and Rosa are from Spain?), this time, she is from the Canary islands, Gran Canaria island specifically, which could bring up the location of the film.

At first I thought it was at a beach or lakeside, but after a long research, I thought, hey, maybe if Rosa is from the Canary islands, then Roman movie was perhaps filmed there, that and the seemingly constant winds would make an oceanside location more logical, wonder if it was too cold up there? If that's the case, more kudos to Rosa. I looked at pictures of the landscape of Gran Canaria island and it's very likely it was there. Then again, I might be wrong, I'm not an expert at playing GeoGuessr .


That should be it for today's post! Next post will touch on the topic of Rosa, an actress who deserves way more recognition than she has.

As always, stay tuned!

 

[justarandomguy]

Also, on the topic of practical effects, for the scourging scene, they did a trick where the whip has red painting on it, so it leaves marks on Rosa's back. It's a good effect for the initial strike of the whip.

 

[justarandomguy]

A frustrating masterpiece
Part IV: An actress that deserved more

If you recall my christa analysis thread, you know I didn't share too much about Bruna, mostly due to there being little information, the films she acted in, one is impossible to find and the other one has her character dead from the get-go, only appearing in a picture on the background of a scene. Add to that the fact that her life took a path of being a teacher, a more private life if you may.

That is not the case with Roman movie's lead actress.

Meet Rosa Escrig, a spanish playwright, actress, and lead of her own theater productions, mainly working on the Canary islands. She also was a teacher for little more than a decade on filmmaking courses for younger aspirants, man, what is it with POAG and the teacher coincidences?

"Randomguy..." you may think, "She looks little to nothing like the actress". You're right, after a research that surprisingly took even longer than Bruna's, one might think, is this her? I doubted myself a lot of times, but then I knew it was her with other pictures, it was exactly the same face. Man does makeup makes a lot of difference sometimes.
Also, remember that she made Roman Movie in 2008. According to a source that we need to take with a grain of salt, she was 35 in 2015, which would mean that she was 28 at the time of making Roman movie, and nowadays she's around 44, so age and makeup can make it a little confusing, I believe it's mostly makeup.

(The last two pictures are from an award ceremony- wait a minute... I've seen that goofball face gesture somewhere else).

Needless to say, she is a perfect cast for a female christ.
While Bruna was perfect for the "innocent condemned girl" role, Rosa is perfect for a female christ role. She seems a wiser woman, her physical appearance is what one would picture as a female christ. And like I said before, she plays perfectly a "expecting this, yet still suffering" act, which is mostly what happened in the original story.

Her carrying scenes, excluding the distraction of the two guards helping her with the cross, are perfect. Her laying flat on the ground face down is one of the best shots the film has to offer, thanks to her acting.

Fun mostly useless fact: I remember someone asked on the foundation if she was barefoot during the carrying and Ramon replied he thought she was. The thing is she wore sandals all the time, she was only barefoot from the nailing chapter onwards, but it is understandable, the terrain seemed really rough, and Rosa already was being put through a lot with the whipping and then hanging on the cross scenes, give her a break.

Speaking of which, one of the behind the scenes shows off that she actually seemed to be in pain during one of the scenes on the cross. Letting her weight lean forward must have hurt, perhaps on the wrists due to the ropes or her shoulders due to almost all the weight being on them.

Another fun fact, it seems the team only had three props for nails, which further confirms my theory that it was intended for her feet to be one on top of the other, but that pose wasn't either safe or comfortable for Rosa, remember that only the ropes on her wrists keep her from falling, her feet are on the footrest, one that's not fully flat, so keeping herself from falling was a bit of a tough task.

So far this is all I have for you. I don't think I can say more without being more of a scratched record.
This actress did an amazing job within the limits of what she could do. I firmly believe the editing problems didn't do her justice at all. We praise the acting of others, but in Rosa's case, the downsides of the film she was in overshadow her brilliant acting.

Would she go back to playing a female christ one more time? I doubt it, but it's not impossible.
Nowadays, she has a small family and she still works on theater plays. The fact that she is still in the acting business leaves a small tiny microscopic chance, but not zero.
She seems to be doing great and enjoying what she does, and that is something be a thing to be glad for.

The next post might be the last one, since I will wrap my final thoughts, but if you wanna ask something about this film, feel more than welcome.
Until the next post
Stay tuned!

 

[Wragg]

Astonishing that you were able to identify the actress!

 

[justarandomguy]

A frustrating masterpiece
Part V: Final thoughts

After this trip, I wonder if I was too harsh on Roman movie? Yes and no.
The final cut of Roman movie is still disappointing, with really high highs, and really low lows. But I have to admit that it has grown on me, as it still has a lot of merit, for trying new things and taking risks. Ramon could have just done another indoors shooting, yet he went for an outdoors via crucis film.

I don't mean to be too harsh on Ramon's current productions, you know I like to find a middle point between two sides of an argument, Ramon's new videos are not terrible, they still do a decent job at showcasing newer models, but calling them experimental while Roman movie is still out there makes me feel confused. Roman movie was, if not, is perhaps Ramon's most experimental work to date. You could make a case for the 360° videos, I can give you that, but Roman movie will still be the one that took the most risks in my humble opinion.

This film has three roman soldiers, a "female Judas", a "female Pilate", at the very least two cameramen, a lightning person or two, costume design, props like the cross and the crown of thorns and what seems to be, not a model, but a professional actress; It took a really high risk, and the payoff was mixed, but you can't win them all.

Note on the lightning: I can say by experience, good lightning outdoors is NOT easy at all, they did some great outdoors lightning on this film that I noticed in little details that they could only achieve with light reflectors and or diffusers.
Here is a sample on what one needs to make an outdoors footage look good:

(Image hosted on: https://www.videomaker.com/article/14580-video-and-photography-light-reflectors/)

Okay, last praise about Rosa, we could make a case for her really hanging on a cross, since she didn't have the hooks on the cross or a comfortable footrest. Add to that that she couldn't get up or down easily, since her hands were tied to the cross. And the weather, the sun on her bare skin on the moments it wasn't cloudy and the wind. Yeah, on the wind topic, Gran Canaria doesn't exactly have a cold weather, quite the contrary, but hanging half naked up there near the coast, I wonder if she would have felt cold at some point.

After watching the behind the scenes, I knew this was a diamond in the rough, the stuff is there. While there are things like Rosa being helped by two guards to carry the cross, or the personal nitpicks of how the scourging was handled or the feet nailing position, I began to appreciate this film more and more, watching all the efforts done by this crew, I can say that while I don't feel I was too tough on the final cut of Roman movie, I was indeed, way too tough on everything else about this film.

Sometimes I think about editing the behind the scenes and remake Roman movie. While it would be a interesting exercise to see what the outcome is, I'm not sure if there would be too much of a point in doing it, since, well, it's paid content, I could not share this cut, even if I did what other fan cuts of films have done: "Only download this if you have bought the original", after all, the last thing I want to do is kill what could be the lifeline of income that keeps people like Ramon making these works.

I will stand by what I said tho, I'm not saying that editing will make it perfect, especially when everyone has it's own tastes and/or personal nitpicks, but editing could improve it a lot.

A final fun fact to wrap this up, it's kind of funny how common of a problem it seems for the crown to fall of an actress' head. While laying on the cross, Bruna's crow had to be adjusted twice, and even got knocked off by one of the sword props a soldier actor carried. Here, same story, Rosa's crown fell in every shot she was stripped and laid on the cross. Guess I will remain confused with how do those crowns of thorns props work.


I enjoyed having one more of these trips, hopefully something special can be made for this February 23rd day, which I will call the unofficial Roman movie anniversary, which this year becomes 16 years old. Surprises me how Ramon's older films like Christa, made 19 years ago or Roman movie, 16 years ago, still have things that can be discussed, even if they are few.
I'm glad I made this thread, it really did make Roman movie grow on me, making me change my tier list, and put Roman movie just behind The passion of the christa in my favorites, heck, I could put them even if it wasn't for the personal opinions and nitpicks.

Hopefully you also enjoyed this thread, I'll meet you on the next one, hopefully I make can a special post for the 16th anniversary of the film, an image or who knows, maybe a short test video like I did with the manip series I did (The last days of a roman woman). Let's see what happens.

With all of that said, this is why I say Roman movie is a frustrating masterpiece.

Thanks for reading!

 

[thehangingtree]

A final fun fact to wrap this up, it's kind of funny how common of a problem it seems for the crown to fall of an actress' head. While laying on the cross, Bruna's crow had to be adjusted twice, and even got knocked off by one of the sword props a soldier actor carried. Here, same story, Rosa's crown fell in every shot she was stripped and laid on the cross. Guess I will remain confused with how do those crowns of thorns props work.
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Thanks for reading!

Please consider that a 'crown of thorns' was not used much in crucifixions (they didn't crucify many kings of the Jews). Also they did not use 'prop' crown of thorns'. As a nature boy when Tree was younger, he can tell you a real crown of thorns would pierce the skin and would not slip off, even when bumped by a real sword.

Tree has more problems with her loincloth. If you are putting someone to death by crucifying them, one doubts you would leave her the luxury of having her crotch covered....

Hang her naked and let her try to cover herself with her arms nailed to the cross!

 

[justarandomguy]

Guess it's impossible to avoid the loincloth v naked topic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

On the crown of thorns, I don't know, I always wonder how they look so believable, yet they don't seem to hurt the actress.

 

[thehangingtree]

Guess it's impossible to avoid the loincloth v naked topic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

On the crown of thorns, I don't know, I always wonder how they look so believable, yet they don't seem to hurt the actress.

Just a 'Tree' thing... Tree thinks loincloth crucified people came around later on when religion decided nudity was obscene.
As for crown of thorns, a prop can be made that won't come off and look real, but if you are putting someone to death on a cross, why use a prop? Use the real thing- it might hurt but who cares... besides the person on the cross?

 

[justarandomguy]

*[Visible confusion]*

 

[thehangingtree]

*[Visible confusion]*

Tree was raised Catholic (born 1956) and nudity was just not done. You went suppose to have sex except to procreate (and thus 'wait till marriage). So Jesus was always shown wearing a proper loincloth... I doubt the model in your story cared much about having her 'privates' covered...

 

[thehangingtree]

*[Visible confusion]*

Tree was raised Catholic (born 1956) and nudity was just not done. You went suppose to have sex except to procreate (and thus 'wait till marriage). So Jesus was always shown wearing a proper loincloth... I doubt the model in your story cared much about having her 'privates' covered...

In fact, I asked if she minded being crucified nude and she said she didn't so... Tree wasn't sure if she did mind or didn't care, sooo...

...what's your opinion?

 

[Wragg]

I asked if she minded

There's a first....

 

[Deleted member 53063 was Consokis]

Are there of her actually nude?