Animated Stories from the Bible - Moses: From Birth to Burning Bush

There are a lot of animated re-tellings of the story of Moses. More even, perhaps, that there are about Jesus. As a result, I've never really tried to track them all down,nevertheless, when I come across one, I'm usually pretty happy to take a look. This one was made in 1993 and is taken from the sister series to Richard Rich's Animated Stories from the New Testament. Once again it's Rich (The Fox and The Hound) at the helm here.

And as Moses cartoons go, it's not bad. For a start there are no silly sidekicks or overly elaborate sub-plots, the story just sticks to its main focus and tells the story with a nice balance between economy and fleshing out the characters. A meal-time scene from Jethro's tent captures this approach nicely. The group holds hands for a pre-meal blessing - as is apparently the family's custom - but the way it's shown captures both the sense that this is a new custom for Moses, and that there is a spark of attraction between he and Zipporah.

The biggest drawback with it, however, is that the story only goes as far as the burning bush. Whilst it's unclear why this happened, the most likely explanation is that Rich planned to return to the Exodus as later date, but never did. Given that the episodes from the New Testament series were produced over an 18 year period, that would hardly be surprising. But it does tend to leave the story hanging in mid air. Whilst an encounter with the divine has formed the climax to many a tale, it's always just a means to an end in the story of Moses.

It's a shame that the rest of the story never got made however because there's an interesting premise here: In contrast to many versions of the story Moses, indeed everybody from the slaves to the Pharaoh, knows he is a Hebrew. The slaves criticise him for doing Pharaoh's dirty work. The overseers moan about having to work for a Hebrew ("I don't like it, a Hebrew ruling over us"), but broadly speaking there is no major problem with such a state of affairs, nothing to suggest this is totally out of the ordinary.

The most interesting by product of this narrative stance is where it locates Moses' attitude to slavery. We tend to think of Moses as the first anti-slavery pioneer, but in fact the Torah not only accepts the existence of slaves but legislates for the situation. Here Moses is not troubled by the fact that Pharaoh uses slave labour, he's just cares more about how they are treated, increasing rations, ending beatings and allowing a sabbath.

There's some nuance here as well. When making arguments for treating the slaves better to his fellow Egyptians his arguments are all based on capitalism and extracting the greatest benefit. "Treat them better" Moses says, gesturing towards the slaves "you'll have better workers". Privately, however, it's clear that whilst Moses thinks his economic arguments will prove to be the more persuasive, he is driven more by compassion describing a beaten Hebrew as "A man, a person, a living soul".

Ultimately, however, that's an argument that never gets resolved. Moses kills an Egyptian and, when it becomes known, he is sentenced to death. The system, it seems, can tolerate an Israelite in power, but murdering an Egyptian, strips away any such privilege. Moses is foolhardy enough not to realise the bigger implications of his act. He fails to appreciate the meaning of crossing that particular line and it is only a moment of compassion from his adopted mother, and apparently good luck, that he manages to escape with his life.

So whilst this is very much a film for children in terms of form there's a little bit more going on in terms of content and Rich's decision not to pander to the lowest common denominator by introducing twee quirkiness more than pays off.

Su Re (2012; The King): A New(ish), Italian(ish), Jesus Film

For a little while now, I've been meaning to post about a Jesus film, released back in 2012, by Sardinian director Giovanni Columbu

Su Re (The King) debuted at the Turin Film Festival, but made a bit more of a splash when it was released at the Rotterdam Film Festival a few months later. There's a short write up of it on the festival's website. The festival also prompted an intriguing review from The Hollywood Reporter. It makes the obvious comparison with Pasolini's Il vangelo secondo Matteo and also with Albert Serra (whose Magi film Birdsong I greatly admire). Having seen a little of it, that's a comparison I can agree with. Here's one of the more intriguing parts of the review:

We see no miracles, no supernatural trappings, no resurrection, no divine signs apart from some heavy rumbles of thunder and a medium-sized earth-tremor...

Columbu's script, co-written with his brother Michele, consists of mainly short scenes taken from the four gospels, some of which diverge from or even contradict each other, but whose basic details are roughly similar.

That chides with the Rotterdam's write up's comment that Columbu "takes his inspiration from the way in which the four Gospels provide different angles on the story". That comment is echoed in this brief summary from CPH PIX: "Referring to all four gospels, 'The King' highlights the differences between them...". There's also a reference there to Kurosawa's Rashomon, a film which I am yet to see (though, coincidentally, Kurosawa's The Idiot was the last film I finished watching) which has been echoed elsewhere as well.

That site also contains some footage, and there are a few other bits and pieces on YouTube, four clips here and some "backstage" footage.

In terms of getting your hands on it, it can be imported via Amazon, but the audio is only in Sardinian and the subtitles are only in Italian. That said, most of the footage appears to be from Jesus' last 24-48 hours so it's not hard to figure out what's going on and, as I'm learning Italian at the moment, I'm enjoying the challenge. Hopefully, I'll post my review shortly.

HT Peter Chattaway.