why the title?

well, Dumont likes to weave into the mundane the theological. Nothing with him is purely descriptive. People don't walk in his films as such, they don't simply do what it might seem they are doing. He gives his characters the advantage of a poetic force. He doesn't hide their stupidity, of course, their ugliness, but he does invite a deep reflection about the order of their existence. Slowly Dumont works up to a typically Bressonian catharsis where you are given a key to disclosing the work. He has quite a painterly way about doing this as well. I thought the scene where Freddy his having his brain scanned was quite riveting. But yes, the jesus reference. I remember reading Martin Amis in London Fields give a good account of the two different ways a title could relate to a work and neither of these really fit for the life of jesus.

Is Dumont slightly over-egging it? Is this just too abstract for such a godless lot? There is the scene early on, one of only two overt theological references, where they are in the hospital and one of the gang says to Freddie: "See the poster. It's about a guy who came back to life." The picture is of Jesus. I guess it would be of him raising Lazurus rather than the ressurection but I'm not sure. And I'm sure Dumont would be happy about the uncertainty. He like to be explicit about the physical but the spiritual is treated as though through a glass darkly. The lack of Jesus in the film, the inability of the characters to escape the profane - "it's not easy talking about death and everything" allows Dumont to frame his film by way of contrast, theologically. I would say it's more in the tradition of a painter giving his picture a title which casts a certain relief on its meaning than what you normally expect from a film-maker.

It seems a shame no one's commented on the repeated shots of bike-riding having the feel of a computer game. Always empty roads. Especially the scene with the red car. It looked to have escaped from a racing game. Let's face it. Freddy and his friends in the city would be doing just that; hours in front of a video-game. But the point here is they don't mime, or imagine, they do. Dumont is saying for a rawer, truer picture of humanity look away from the site of modernity - the city and return to the earth. The agragrian. And find man and all his sin. Kind of negativistic Berger.

I agree that the title is tough and this film is filled with equally tough images. So, the following will probably seem simplistic and juvenile, but it’s the best I can figure (normally, I hate when people write such weak-kneed, non-confrontational bologna, as I wrote above, but I’m very self-conscience … like a good Catholic boy).

Anyway, many people believe Jesus' life is less important than Jesus' death (‘The Passion of the Christ’ confirmed it – personally, I am a ‘Last Temptation’ man). In that vein, Jesus' death is more-than-equal to anything else he said or did. So, when Dumont refers to The Life of Jesus he is also referring to Jesus’ death, besides Jesus never really died. I think ‘The Life of Jesus’ is trying to understand the death of Jesus in normal-people terms, literally and spiritually (I take full responsibility for my creaky balancing act on this thin line of pretension).

Okay. If the Arabic boy, Kadder, is Jesus (he’s morally sound, an all-around nice guy, trusting, resists temptations and is from the Middle East), that makes Freddie and his crew his persecutors. So, Dumont is trying to reach a spiritual conclusion explaining how normal people like doe-eyed Freddy can do harm to innocent people.

Freddy (as the previous poster said) is non too spiritual in nature. He treats his girlfriend with distrust and neglect. He drives recklessly. He sponges off his loving mother, who still grounds him even though he’s far too old to be treated like a child. He mindlessly follows his friends and molests young girls. So, Dumont is showing how a popular lack in spirituality can rot a person until they have no appreciation for anything except their meager existence. And although his stupidity makes him seem naïve, it also makes him dangerous (another apology: you never know).

So, just as all war movies are anti-war movies, ‘The Life of Jesus’ is a spiritual call to arms against living as an animal.

By the way, I don’t think spirituality only applies to religion. It’s realizing that life is more than the obvious, which isn’t necessarily afterlife-obsessed.

Also, I have a hard time understanding Freddy’s behavior, but I can see how many other people who accept such immoral, socially indoctrinated and tolerated beliefs could benefit from 'The Life of Jesus'. Which is ironically also the culprit of organized religion. I live in Nebraska. I am also pro-choice.

"La Vie de Jesus," written in 1863 by the ex-seminarian Ernest Renan, was the most popular French book in the the 19th century. There is an excellent discussion of it and Renan in the eighth chapter of Owen Chadwick's "The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century" (1975). I've read the Renan's book, and it is indeed very good, but as Chadwick points out it is a strange work: a biography of Jesus written as if he were a figure like Napoleon or Churchill. Chadwick points to the paradox of a biography of a person who merits a biography only because of what people believed he did, not what he actually did. This suggests the naturalist paradox of the film: how can we understand the mysterious—in this case, the persistent problem of violence—when mystery has exited our narratives? Dumont's answer is to naturalize aggression through an ironic pastoral. His final scene, where Freddy is in his element, bare to the light of the sun, one with nature, and then briefly clouded over, points to the limitation of trying to represent the mystery of experience in an age that accepts nothing other than natural representations. I think this is why we continually see ruins and monuments in the film. Not only do they refer to a history of violence, they also refer to the ruins of all modern representations, Church, State, and family being only the most obvious.

Here's some extract from a past Dumont's interview about his film L'Humanité. It could give you ideas..

"There is no pretension or intention, in this title. When we say Humanity, it has some weight, we choose the title, we have a certain intention, and there is the film behind. So the viewer seeking the title in the film. This is serious, this question of title, in a work of art, whether in painting, in film, or otherwise. Even in abstract art. "Love of Life", and you paint a white canvas, it is a title that is not nothing. I am someone who is suspicious of the intentions, of thought ... That's why I do this kind of cinema, too. Here, Twentynine Palms, this is simply the name of the corn where we shot. It is direct, it means nothing. Or it also tells a little town, but if we do not know, this city ... Of course, this title may evoke something from, for example, who decided one day to call this city as well. By choosing this title, may I take with me, his intention to him. Anyway, we can not escape the intentions. And as no exception, as much work do you think about it. By choosing working conditions that cause. That's why I'm rather looking for the accident."