"I do not believe in a metaphysical god. I am religious because I have a natural identification between reality and God. Reality is divine. That is why my films are never naturalistic. The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance." — Pasolini 

In his provocative statement, Pier Paolo Pasolini claims, "I do not believe in a metaphysical god. I am religious because I have a natural identification between reality and God. Reality is divine. That is why my films are never naturalistic. The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance." This perspective presents a fascinating paradox: while Pasolini rejects conventional metaphysical notions of God, he simultaneously affirms a profound religious sensibility grounded in the sacredness of reality itself. 

What does Pasolini mean by the "original sacred significance" of reality? How might film portray the sacred dimensions of reality that conventional perception might miss? This paper will analyze two films—The Gospel According to St. Matthew and Spirited Away—to demonstrate two complementary approaches to revealing the sacred. Each film challenges Max Weber's view that "the world is disenchanted” and illustrates how cinematic means perform a re-enchantment, ultimately showing how films make visible the dimensions of reality obscured by secular modernity.

Interestingly, Pasolini's claim that "reality is divine" challenges conventional binary classifications of the sacred and profane. Mayanthi Fernando argues that modern conceptions of humanity were based on "a simultaneous distinction with—and mastery over—both 'natural' and 'supernatural' worlds" (Fernando 568). Our basic cognitive structure has evolved into natural-supernatural dyads in binary opposition due to "coeval separations," as nonhuman beings were "assigned to the sphere of nature (where they were to be known by science) or to the metaphysical and symbolic fields of knowledge" (Fernando 569). However, we sometimes encounter natural phenomena that “do not live only in secular worlds nor abide only by secular categories separations” (Fernando 569). This numinous experience, which Rudolf Otto describes as "the quite distinctive category of the holy or sacred,” transcends the separations between natural and supernatural. Otto’s idea of the numinous represents something "wholly other," an experience that is "beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible, and the familiar" (Otto 26). Existing within reality yet transcending ordinary categories of understanding, “attending to that third domain—the so-called supernatural” induces Otto’s "creature-feeling" of awe and existential dependence (Fernando 569). This “creature-feeling” is made apparent by Pasolini’s neorealist approach to the storytelling of The Gospel According to St. Matthew, which transforms our perception, undoing the distinction between nature and culture.

In The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Pasolini's austere documentary-like style makes visible the numinous quality of reality typically filtered out from modern consciousness. Unlike mainstream Hollywood depictions of Jesus at the time, which relied on spectacle and grandeur, the film embraces an overall gritty and unpolished look. For instance, when Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount, Pasolini’s documentary-like aesthetic depicts it in stark black and white instead of emphasizing the moment's sublime and otherworldly aspects. This strategic approach aligns with Pasolini's paradoxical claim that his films are "never naturalistic" despite having qualities of documentary-like realism. He argues that "naturalistic" cinema reproduces surface appearances without revealing their deeper significance. 

In contrast, the film’s austere, black-and-white portrayal strips away conventional religious imagery. By capturing the "distinctions and motions of mental reality," the film reveals the authentic divine presence within historical reality (McGinn 75). Colin McGinn offers insight, suggesting these technical elements of Pasolini's presentation heighten our "mental reality [which] is presumably colorless . . . enabling us to forget that it was just an ordinary human visage that looked into the camera" (McGinn 75-76). Furthermore, to emphasize the unseen dimensions of reality, the camera is often positioned at a distance, observing and restraining from dramatization. As a result, the authentic depiction of Jesus addressing ordinary-looking people gives the film a grounded and unpretentious feel. The lack of cinematic embellishment during the scene when Jesus's words are delivered unadornedly channels our attention to the unseen dimensions of reality that can appear more realistic. 

In this moment, through a re-enchantment, the visible is used to evoke the invisible, transforming our perception of reality and inducing a numinous experience that feels "objective and outside the self" (Otto 11). Accordingly, the film serves as a medium to recover a vision of reality that transcends “secular humanist limitations” and relationally positions the “more-than-natural alongside the more-than-human” (Fernando 569). As a result, this reveals a divine presence that permeates everyday reality. Consequently, Jesus’s story, which is holy without its moral or rational aspects, is given divine significance, embodying Pasolini's vision to "give back to reality its original sacred significance." 

Perhaps the most literal visualization of Pasolini's claim that "reality is divine" is exemplified by Hayao Miyazaki's animistic worldview in Spirited Away. The film literally reanimates the world with spirits and gods, transforming Chihiro's perception from "buffered" to "porous" as she learns to see the sacred that permeates ordinary spaces. As Chihiro navigates a world among spirits, which can inhabit everyday objects and spaces, her journey illustrates how human and divine realms can break through the "buffered" perception of modernity to recover a more "porous" relationship with reality. 

Initially, Chihiro shares the typically "buffered" perspective, seeing the abandoned theme park as merely a strange place. However, unlike her parents, Chihiro becomes more “porous” and opens up to the spiritual dimensions of reality typically filtered out by modern consciousness. As a child, her perception is less subjected to the limits of modern rationality, making her “more accepting and sensitive to spiritual forces.” Thus, Chihiro develops a unique ability to perceive and interact with the spirit world. This explains why only she could see the visualization of the sacred permeating ordinary reality, such as the gods and spirits arriving at the liminal bathhouse. When the sacred literally permeates the material world through animated fantasy, Chihiro experiences both terror and awe, or a numinous experience that modern rationality cannot explain. 

Perhaps, at this moment, the realization of “multispecies entanglements and shared worlds” explains why Pasolini does not believe in a metaphysical god yet identifies reality with God (Fernando 579). Muhammad Asad suggests the possibility of “modes of existence that humans simply cannot know . . . because they remain inaccessible to our common sensory perception” (Fernando 579). Therefore, “it is only logical to assume that our physical senses can establish contact with them only under very exceptional circumstances,” and Chihiro’s transformation from buffered to porous demonstrates divinity as immanent and present within reality (Fernando 579). 

In conclusion, the two films challenge Weber’s argument that modernity has systematically stripped the world of its magical and sacred dimensions through rationalization and secularization. Pasolini's neorealist approach and Miyazaki's animated fantasy demonstrate how cinema’s unique capacity to transform perception is a profound re-enchantment of perception. Rather than separating divinity from reality into a transcendent realm, film transfigures our perception. It reconceptualizes our multispecies relations, and ultimately, through this renewed understanding of nature, culture, and supernature, film can restore our vision of the sacred within the everyday.

References

Fernando, Mayanthi. “Uncanny Ecologies.” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, vol. 42, no. 3, 1 Dec. 2022, pp. 568–583, https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-10148233.

McGinn, Colin. “The Metaphysics of the Movie Image.” The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, New York, NY, 2008, pp. 58–99.

Miyazaki, Hayao, director. Spirited Away. Studio Ghibli, 2001, Accessed 7 Mar. 2025.

Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. Oxford University Press, 1958, pp.1–40.

Pasolini, Pier Paolo, director. The Gospel According to St. Matthew. Arco Film, 1964, Accessed 8 Mar. 2025.