Priest: the Miramax DVD release

Antonia Bird's 'Priest' is a small film of rare emotional power, dealing with issues of ageism, sexuality and religious hypocrisy. The aftershock this movie made is still felt today in its censored DVD release, unfortunately the only DVD version on the market at this time. Watching it again after all these years still had a deep impact on me, but I couldn't help but feel cheated out of the seven minutes now missing from the film. An example: the original film contained no frontal male nudity, yet for this DVD release a scene in which Linus Roache's bum was shown had to be edited out in order to save it from the dreaded NC-17 rating. None of the edited material could have been deemed obscene, and I doubt that the kind of people who would object to those scenes would care to watch a film such as this anyway. Hopefully the BBC, who produced the film, will release the DVD in its entirety one day, but despite these changes to the film, its power and message remains undiminished.

9/10