The Da Vinci Code
Suspected of murdering the elderly curator of the Louvre Museum, Jacques Sauniére, played by Jean-Pierre Marielle, American symbologist and Harvard professor Robert Langdon, played by Tom Hanks, is brought to the crime scene under the pretense of assisting Captain Bezu Fache, played by Jean Reno, from the Direction Centrale Police Judiciaire, the French equivalent of US's FBI.
Sauniére's lifeless body was discovered in the Museum's Grand Gallery. Before having died, the curator had removed his clothes and positioned his body as an exact duplicate of Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous sketch, The Vitruvian Man. On his stomach Sauniére drew a pentacle with the blood seeping from the gunshot wound he had sustained. Alongside the body was scribbled "13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5, O Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!"
Unaware of Fache's suspicions, Langdon receives an urgent message from police cryptologist Sophie Neveu, played by Audrey Tautou, that he should call the US Embassy. The message as it turns out is a sham and instead Langdon receives a prerecorded message from Neveu explaining that he is in danger and should say nothing more to Captain Fache. As soon as Captain Fache's true intention for contacting Langdon becomes apparent, Langdon and Neveu, set out to solve the curator's murder.
Searching for Sauniére's murder places Langdon and Neveu in the midst of a centuries-old conflict within the Catholic Church between the Vatican's Council of Shadows, who's main objective is to seek out and kill all descendents of Jesus Christ and the Priory of Sion, the guardians of the descendents of Jesus Christ.
According to legend, the Holy Grail is identified with the cup used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper. This religious interpretation for the Holy Grail is the central theme of The Da Vinci Code. The much sought after cup, which has been a literary topic as far back as the 12th century, holds proof that the Vatican had rewritten Biblical history and conned its followers into believing their version of Jesus's immortality and celibacy.
Deciphering numerical codes, anagrams and a cryptex while being chased by the French police and followers of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic sect assisting the Council of Shadows, Langdon and Neveu's murder investigation unravels the Vatican's "con of mankind" when they uncover the Holy Grail.
Published by CT Aisyah
Formerly a food columnist and lifestyle freelance writer for several South Jersey Newspapers. View profile
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