My 12 year-old is bit of a stickler for facts and details. He likes dinosaur books and Godzilla. He sometimes gets hung up on a line that he finds odd. We were coming out of the cinema and he had one thing to say about King of Kings.
“It’s not the greatest story, everyone has different opinions,” he said, disputing a line said by the wife of Charles Dickens in the animated film we had just watched. This line was stuck stubbornly in his head, like a popcorn kernel lodged between your molars.
It’s a story that’s over 2000 years old, and one that deserves retelling again and again. Only last Sunday I told my daughter who had been at a match, that she missed a cracking Gospel, and I gave a “street” version of the trial of Jesus, and his betrayal by Judas and Peters which, I say with no modesty, had them all rolling in the aisles. The point is, each time we retell the story of Christ we have a magnificent array of characters, plots, and deep archetypes to work with. Without changing the essential story, we can convey compelling differentiated versions or styles of the story.
Twenty years ago, Mel Gibson told the story of the Passion with gruesome realism in a shocking trial of the audience. His cinematography was masterful with deep contrast of shadow and lit face reminiscent of Carravagio’s greatest works. Perhaps not one for the children though.
Angel Studios’ adaptation of the story of Christ is lovely. Like Dante’s great work, the chief witness is guided by an interlocutor who explains the great themes of the tale. The witness to Christ is a young boy obsessed with the romantic mythical version of a king, and his father – none other than the great Victorian storyteller, Charles Dickens – is his Virgil on this journey.
The play on the relationship between the father and the child is a way into the story and the child’s perspective. This of course echoes the biblical passage from Matthew “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
As we see the story with a sense of wonder from the child’s eyes we are also reminded of another quote from Matthew “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
So the story is told by Charles and witnessed by his son, Walter, who is inserted into the story’s biblical scenes.
There is nothing new in the retelling of the story of Christ here. No liberties taken with the main narrative; but what this telling brings, is the act of witness. In the child’s journey we see the transformative power of faith.
The aesthetic of this film makes a powerful point. Unlike Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of The Christ, which had deeply atmospheric contrasts in light and dark; King of Kings is like the beautifully lit depictions of life we see in the paintings of the Dutch masters such as Hals or Vermeer. Christ is usually presented at dawn or evening with a brilliant sun behind him. The aesthetic message of illumination, of bringing light and clarity with the god news is inserted into nearly every scene. The scenes themselves are the great passages of Christ’s life, and it’s wonderful to see them retold specifically for children.
The miracle of the loaves and fishes is invested in symbolic imagery befitting the occasion. In this scene Christ is stationed on the top of a hill where a single tree provides comfort and shade. The slopes of the hill and the hill across the valley are choked with people who can all hear and see Christ who sits with his back to the tree. Christ, the beacon. Christ with a message for the world, for all to hear. Christ the comfort and shelter.
I asked my boys what their favourite part was. One said the walking on water bit, and then changed his mind and said the devil being cast out of the possessed man into the pigs.
I liked this scene too. It reminded me of Dostoyevsky’s explanation of this scene in Demons, his magnificent tale of false gospels.
“What happened to the pigs” said my other boy.
“The devil made them mad and they ran into the sea and drowned,” I said.
“Hmm, that’s not fair” he said.
My 12 year old, always one for minutiae and facts, explained to me that some pigs are great swimmers.
I liked this film and my boys did too. There were a good few families attending this screening also, so it looks like word of mouth has gotten round.
This is a good thing. In a time where many films are failing badly because, driven by woke ideologues, they refuse to tell good stories, it is refreshing that a counterculture can fill the vacuum left by the failing left wing culture gurus. King of Kings is no masterpiece but it is a whole site better than some of the stuff offered for children this past year (A Minecraft Movie was the most superficial absolute boring crap) and I found it a great way to engage my young children on The Greatest Story Ever Told. -One well worth dropping into the cinema this Easter season to see with the family.