Product Details

• Actors: Ben Hammott, Dr. Gabriel Barkay, Margaret Starbird, Rev. Lionel Fanthorpe, Robert Eisenman
• Directors: Bruce Burgess
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Cinema Libre
• DVD Release Date: September 16, 2008
• Run Time: 113 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001DRF824
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,714 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Bloodline" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Cinema Libre Studio Release Date: 09/16/2008

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bloodline Review, November 11, 2008

By 

Wanda McKolskey (San Bruno, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bloodline (DVD)

This movie is really for the open minded. At first I was opposed to any negative view particularly when it came to my belief. I realized I needed to do my own research, if for nothing else but to prove I was right. Was I ever wrong. The pain & betrayal I felt for being lied to by the Vatican. For me, truth must win out no matter what. I find most people who give negative reviews never even take the time to read up on the subject. It's the only way you will ever be satisfied with the results. I find this film riveting. It confirms everything I've read and more. Too bad the average person doesn't realize that even our government has fed us garbage throughout the centuries and have their own agenda. What a true eye opener they would experience. Then they would realize nothing is outrageous of what people will do for power.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A well-made film that instills drama into archeology but never offers definitive proof to viewer satisfaction, April 16, 2010

By 

Haunted Flower (Indianapolis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bloodline (DVD)

Bloodline Review

"Bloodline" is a documentary from the Cinema Libre Studio directed by Bruce Burgess that explores the popular belief that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fled to France with their child by following clues left in churches. It sounds very "DaVinci Code" and according to IMDB was released in 2008, 2 years after the "DaVinci Code" movie, more than likely in response to the peak of interest in the subject raised by the book/movie.

Bruce Burgess right away comes clean that the interest in the book is what propelled him to investigate the claims. He goes straight to the Louvre within the first few minutes and talks about the hidden messages in paintings and literature. The footage in the film has been taken from 2005 to 2006.

Burgess speaks with a spokesman for the Priory of Sion that became a public organization in 1956 but could not give away all the answers. This man indicated that certain works of arts are coded to allow a journey to the truth but it is too dangerous to say outright on film. Another mysterious guy in a cafe walks up and hands the spokesman a card with writing on it after which he shut up. Is the Priory real or a hoax? If it were a hoax, it is unlike any other hoax in history making the documents and "proof" so difficult to come across hiding the materials in libraries and churches. By releasing information gradually over a great deal of time, it is a lot more likely to eventually become widely accepted.

Tim Wallace-Murphy, an author on cracking codes speaks about Latin and anagrams and solving puzzles. He speaks of it as a game but asks the question, who is playing it? The claim is that Jesus did not come to die on the cross for the peoples' sins but to guide others to a path of a way of living and spirituality which would be a different version that would undermine the church's message for years. If a bloodline could be proved and came to light, many changes would take place. Some people the author met claiming to be from the bloodline were descended from Jersuleum, but it is unclear if they are direct from Jesus.

Burgess does a lot of investigating into his subject's backgrounds for authenticity and some people refuse to go on camera and are instead audio recorded. He tracks down a Nicolas Haywood who claims not to be a Priory of Sion member though others are convinced that he is. Haywood does agree to go under the lights on camera and agrees for the record that there is a bloodline and there is evidence for it, but the series of items that prove the bloodline are kept together in secret that he will not divulge. He puts on an aura as the cigarette smoking man like in "The X-Files" and seems much more mysterious with the smoke whirling around.

Suddenly Burgess' phones are apparently being bugged and he gets more involved in the story and it is hinted Burgess himself might be in danger too as well as people he is bringing into it. Haywood indicates that men who talk too much get poisoned, labeled as a cerebral hemorrhage including one person who dies before they can interview him. This is just the beginning!

The drama makes it very exciting with more at stake and might make you feel like you are living the DaVinci Code story all over again but you have to ask how much of it is contrived and how much is real. It is presented in an amazing way with discoveries supposedly being made live on camera, but from another perspective it all potentially could have been planted. There wasn't anything in the film that it wasn't possible in manufacturing circumstances, but then again it could all be real depending on how much you want to buy into it. The filmmaker obviously comes to a point of belief and continues to relate it in commentary. Whether you believe is completely up to you, but it's an interesting ride to say the least either way.

DVD Extras:

First off, the trailer for "The Beautiful Truth" that automatically played to get to the main menu caught my attention right away because it was so off topic of this piece and plays on a common fear people have about their teeth and claims to expose the greatest mercury poisoning one could have might be from fillings in their mouth and ominously asks "How many fillings do you have?"

For bonus features, there is an extended interview with Nicolas Haywood without being cut up like in the film. Absent of the music, it's a little less spooky but more informative and realistic. The deleted scenes are in low resolution video with the website address etched across the center and show footage of taking the chest to a museum, coded messages in a church, exploring a quarry and underground labyrinth, and more tomb footage.

Director Bruce Burgess and Producer Rene Barnett have a commentary track for the film. After starting off talking about his red watch strap and the difficulties of looking pensive in the car while his cameraman attempted not to fall over, he admits that Haywood is the Bloodline version of Cancer Man from X-Files. They remark on how exciting some of their findings were and how some people were mysterious and withholding in their giving of information. Also the many warnings that Rene gave by phone are acknowledged but not explained. Many facts are just acknowledged but not expanded very much on.

More fascinating are the images of scientific documents examining hair found at the tomb and the fact that they aren't afraid to put them on the DVD. If you get the chance, check out this movie's website. It has a really neat opening graphic and is very detailed with more information about the film including news, a blog, and a photo gallery. [...]

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Old story revamped to make it seem more exciting, October 17, 2008

By 

Gregory A. Beamer "Cowboy" (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bloodline (DVD)

Man creates documentary about the bloodline of Jesus, with compelling evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross. It sounds like a great premise. Unfortunately, the evidence is not compelling and the attempt to make it more exciting comes across somewhat overblown, like the kabuki acting in Ran (Kurosawa's kabuki version of King Lear - great film; this isn't).

If you have read The Da Vinci code (or saw the Tom Hank's cliff note version - another good film), you have an inkling of what is going on. In this film, Bruce Burgess digs deep into the world of the Priory of Sion and the mystery of Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château, the village where he was a priest. If you have read the source material Dan Brown used (Margaret Starbird's books, or Holy Blood, Holy Grail), you are right on track.

Within the first few minutes, we are thrown into a faux thriller, with unseen baddies that are apparently out to hurt, maim or kill all of the participants in the film. I say unseen as we never get a glimpse of any of the bad guys, nor does anyone associated directly with the film die. There is one person who dies of a stroke, or cerebral hemorrhage, but there is no evidence this person could have given any information or was killed due to his association with this film.

The film lost me within the first few segments. Rather than state allegedly or possibly, all of the theories, no matter how out there, are stated as facts. Characters known to have perpetuated fraud are presented as persecuted visionaries. It gets a bit annoying after you realize the entire film is going to be this sort of propaganda.

Where it starts to get funny is when the narrator (Bruce Burgess) starts re-enacting bits as if they were filmed as the story unfolded. You know the bits are re-enacted as no low-budget documentarian would film every time he picked up the phone, just in case his producer was calling to tell him some guys (the invisible bad guys) were coming to get him so he should stay away from his hotel. It continues to get more and more sensation as the film goes on.

After tooling around Paris and London, talking to a couple of "Priory insiders" (both of which appear to be a marbles short), and speculating about a possible murder by stroke, the filmmaker and his French producer finally get to Rennes-le-Château.

In Rennes-le-Château, they find a local artist who takes them down to a secret room that nobody has seen (except of course anyone who has asked, according to many Rennes sites) and start to unravel the mystery that leads to the tomb.

During the last half, we find a secret box that contains a stone chalice (Indy fans will be thinking "carpenter's cup") a perfume annointing jar and a variety of ancient coins. These are found in the well known "Cave of the Magdalene" across the valley from Rennes-le-Château. They are very fortunate, indeed, that no Rennes explorers were smart enough to find this.

Then, it gets better. Late at night, Ben Hammot takes them down a side road and has them stand guard while he goes to film (and desecrate) the tomb. Just like any other documentarian worth his salt, Bruce says "sure, go film that all by yourself and I will stand guard." Okay, so he doesn't actually say that, but the film in the movie is supposedly shot by Ben, all by his lonesome.

The best part of the movie, for me, is when he talks to Robert Eisenman, a well known liberal bible scholar and archaelogist. Eisenman nicely hands Bruce Burgess his head on a platter, explaining why he should not be too excited: "It's too perfect! Why is the shroud sitting there with the cross so you can see? Why, in a wet climate like Southern France, hasn't that whole thing rotted away?" Priceless.

If you don't mind loose facts, you can very well come away a bit excited about this film. If you are looking for a film to "prove" religion is bogus, and don't care much about how loosely the evidence is chained, you might like it.

Despite the fact the film is horrible on facts, I would have given it a better rating if the cloak and daggar stuff actually worked. As it stands, it feels like it is woven into the story to make it an easier sell. There are parts that are so obviously restaged that it comes across as Vaudeville.

On the plus side, the film is fairly well filmed for a low budget documentary. The filmmaker also does not take potshots at his guests (ala Bill Maher or Michael Moore). But he also stacks the deck with Rennes enthusiasts, "experts" simpathetic to the Bloodline theory and liberal biblical scholars. Not exactly the balanced approach.

I would like to see this subject revisited in a fair, unsensationalized documentary. I would also like more information on what has transpired with the evidence since they finished editing the film last year. I would like to see the DNA test results, etc.