Guess what’s surprisingly good? And is easily one of the best edited films I’ve seen at the Toronto Film festival so far, not to mention one of the most unsettling and a dead-serious spiritual seeker? Abel Ferrara’s Mary, which I saw Sunday night at the Isabel Bader theatre. I didn’t have many hopes for this thing because — frankly? — I’ve been wondering about Ferrara lately. How long has it been since he’s really hit the mark, which I guess was Bad Lieutenant in ’92? Half improvised and half “written” by Ferrara and Simone Lageoles and one or two others, and excitingly captured by dp Stefano Falivene and very strongly acted by Forest Whitaker, Juliet Binoche, Matthew Modine and Heather Graham, Mary gets into all kinds of religious issues (particularly religious hatred and bigotry) but it’s partly about how a film about the passion of Jesus Christ called This Is My Blood stirs up the wacko right and puts its producer and star (played by Modine) into the media spotlight. It’s also about how the spiritual current of this film somehow gets under the skin of the actress who plays Mary Magdelene (Binoche) and prompts her to abandon acting and wander around the Middle East, looking to connect with Christ’s spirit on some level. It’s also about how the film touches the life of a Charlie Rose-type smoothie who hosts a vaguely exploitative TV show called “Jesus — The Real Story,” and how a health crisis threatening his wife (Graham) and newborn son shakes him up big-time and leads to a feverish talkin’-straight-to-God prayer scene that amounts to one hell of an acting moment for Whitaker. This movie is nothing if not a handful, and I was surprised at how “good” (challenging, intense, impassioned) it plays.