• Bible Films Blog

    Looking at film interpretations of the stories in the Bible - past, present and future, as well as preparation for a future work on Straub/Huillet's Moses und Aron and a few bits and pieces on biblical studies.


    Name:
    Matt Page

    Location:
    U.K.












    Tuesday, June 22, 2010

    Exodus on 4oD

    Back in 2007 I wrote various posts about the film Exodus (a.k.a The Margate Exodus) which set the story of Moses in the modern day seaside town of Margate. I've just discovered that the film is available to view online on Channel 4's 4oD as well as on YouTube, though I imagine access will be blocked in many countries.

    I have mixed memories of the film, partly because I remember its weakness more than its strengths. My review at the time mentioned various positives which I have since forgotten. Perhaps I should watch it again at some point.

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    Monday, November 26, 2007

    DVD Release for Exodus
    Plus a Few Additional Thoughts

    A week after its TV première, Penny Woolcock's Exodus has been released on DVD. TV DVDs do have a fairly swift turnaround these days and, I suppose, for one off programmes such as this it must make the most of the marketing opportunities, especially with Christmas just around the corner.

    When I first heard about this film being released onto DVD I had hoped it would contain some of the other films that had been made as part of the Margate Exodus project, and it looks like my wish has been granted. The main one I was hoping for was The Waste Man documentary - a 24 minute film looking at the making of and burning of Antony Gormley’s Waste Man sculpture that appears in the film. It aired on Channel 4 on 2nd Dec. last year. Curiously though it showed much earlier than the actual Exodus film.

    The other main feature, at least according to the official website's Latest News is that it will also feature a "Making of" documentary. I've not had a copy of the actual DVD so I can't comment much further, but the print of the film on the screener DVD that was sent out is probably the same one that will appear on the retail DVD, and it was pretty good.Now a couple of additional thoughts on the actual film. Firstly, (spoilers) the way the film handles the supernatural is quite interesting. At first it appears that the film will affirm the supernatural. Moses hears a voice during the burning of Jethro's funeral pyre telling him to lead his people to freedom. At around the same time we see the first of several "visions" that are experienced by Dada - a street child who appears to be mute. However, as the film progresses the voice that Moses hears fails to return, leaving Moses himself to choose his own horrific tactics.

    Yet Dada's vision's continue. He has four in total: Golden light bathe Moses as he showers; Jethro re-awakening while the residents of Dreamland pick through the ashes of his pyre; one I can't quite remember (to be added in later!); and Moses parting the Red Sea. However, as these visions continue it gradually becomes clear that these visions do not appear to be flashes of the supernatural but only the solvent induced hallucinations of a lost and disturbed child.In other words the only incident in the film that suggests the presence of God in the film (other than, perhaps, divine providence in Moses mother placing her son at the feet of Pharaoh's wife) is the voice Moses hears, which is, of course, open to a vast number of interpretations. It also suggests that the original Moses also only heard God, at best, vaguely, and perhaps not at all.

    The other minor point I wished to make was one regarding casting. Claire Ashitey-Smith appears here as Moses's wife Zipporah. Of course her biggest role to date was as the pregnant Kee in last year's Children of Men (my review). That film had been released after this one was made, but it's an interesting choice nevertheless as both roles are effectively re-contextualised biblical mothers.

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    Wednesday, November 21, 2007

    Reviews for Exodus

    Most of the reviews for Penny Woolcock's Exodus ran in yesterday's major papers so here's a quick round up.

    The Daily Telegraph was fairly positive noting that "if the set-up led you to expect a neat, liberal parable of the oppressed versus The Man, then you’d have been wrong. Last night’s drama proved far more complicated and interesting than that."

    There's nothing in The Independent, but the other two broadsheets seem less impressed. The Guardian Preview article was fairly positive
    Woolcock's production doesn't always work, but it's nevertheless compelling. It's also quite beautiful, with even a dilapidated fairground possessing a grim splendour. And like the most powerful speculative fiction ...it's all about here and now.
    ...but the final review took the opposite position:
    It was clearly a well-intentioned production, but desperately uninvolving. Perhaps because of the limitations of the non-professional parts of the cast...You would need a classful of infant Oliviers to give lines like "My mummy cried every day, then she stuck needles in her arm" any pathos. As it was, you needed, as the man said, a heart of stone not to laugh.
    Likewise The Times said "good on the 600 Margate residents who had a whale of a time making community theatre this summer. But bad luck on us that it was filmed and filled two long hours on Channel 4 last night".

    There's also a Channel 4 microsite for the film which includes a photo gallery and some further information.

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    Monday, November 19, 2007

    Exodus (2007)
    a.k.a. The Margate Exodus

    Tonight (19th November 2007) Channel 4. 10pm
    2007 has been a busy years for Moses films. The summer found David Wain's bawdy examination of the Ten Commandments in The Ten. Then, last month, Christian Slater voiced a CGI Moses in Promenade Pictures' The Ten Commandments. Now it's the turn of a British film to take a look at this subject matter in Penny Woolcock's Exodus - a modernised take on the Moses story set in Margate on the south-east coast of England.

    In this version of the story, the people of Israel are replaced by a group of immigrants and homeless people who are being incarcerated in a huge camp on the site of the "Dreamland" fun park. But as the police squads come in the night, one woman manages to escape just long enough to leave her baby with one of those who will remain outside.

    The outsider happens to be Batya Mann, the wife of the politician who formed the idea of this incarceration camp, Pharaoh Mann. Thus Moses is brought up the son of this Pharaoh, and the real story of his birth remains a secret.

    All that changes, however, when years later, Moses takes a trip into Dreamland, and kills a security guard. He's rescued by Aaron and Zipporah, but they reveal his true identity, and, as Moses is safe from prosecution inside the camp he decides to stay. Moses eventually marries Zipporah, and starts work for her father Jethro giving an education to the street children.There's always a danger when setting a well known story in a modern context that the parallels won't come off, or that the whole thing ends up feeling a bit contrived. Here, however, the various elements hold together fairly well. The idea of the "undesirables" of society being caged in seems a little far fetched until a reporter mentions the concentration camps of the last century, and it suddenly becomes apparent that these things are not as unlikely as they may have seemed.

    That said, a lot hangs on the relationship between Pharaoh and his wife. It's established right at the start that she is opposed to his politics, but as the film unfolds we discover that in spite of this there is a strong mutual love between them. In order to maintain this they have both had to lie to themselves - Batya that she will be able to change her husband's appalling politics, and Pharaoh that his beloved son is not related to the people he has so cold-heartedly locked up.

    The believability of this relationship is largely down to impressive performances by Ger Ryan (Stardust and Bernard Hill (Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers). It's no so much the way they deliver their lines as the way they carry themselves. Both are subtle and understated performances, and it's to the credit of Hill, particularly, that he is able to add some humanity to a truly monstrous character.What's fascinating about Exodus, however, is the way that we see the process happening in reverse in Pharaoh's adopted son. Initially, Moses seems to have followed in his mother's footsteps. He's compassionate, and troubled by the camp, smuggling books into it via his maid. But once Jethro is killed by a "Pest control" gunman he decides to start an uprising which becomes increasingly violent. He may be on the other side of the ideological fence to the man who brought him up, but he clearly has Pharaoh's ability to ignore the cries of his victims whilst in pursuit of his goal.

    Moses plan to liberate those inside the camp is by unleashing a series of attacks that function as the 10 plagues. Initially he uses his love of micro-biology to poison the sea with a red algae. This is followed by spreading devastating computer viruses, and contaminating food, and so on.

    The use of these plagues will be the largest determining factor in how people respond to the film. Some will argue that these modern plagues do not offer a fair comparison. After all, those in the Bible were the work of God whereas these are solely the work of Moses and his comrades. At the other end of the spectrum will be those who, for some time, have been troubled by the carnage wrought on the Egyptian people by the plagues and the death of the first born, and are pleased to see a film that gives voice to their concerns.

    There will be still others, however, who find watching this film is a genuinely disturbing experience, as, for perhaps the first time they see the story of the Exodus from the point of view of those on the losing side. The Exodus story has long held a cherished place in Liberation Theology, but it's rare that people consider the lot of the ordinary Egyptians, ruled by a tyrant, and blighted by plagues and the death of their children because of his stubbornness.

    Unfortunately, having pulled off this brilliant expose, the film flounders, seemingly unable to suggest a way forward. It's clearly not in favour of incarcerating any group of people en masse, but it's unable to give them the ability to rise above the morals of their oppressors. It's perhaps the starkest of warnings about the current course of this country's politicians on the issue of immigration, as if it's saying that if competition continues to mount over who can be toughest on immigration, then look what might happen. The problem is that this ultimately depicts those seeking asylum in an eerily similar light to the way they are portrayed by far right politicians.

    So whilst Exodus delivers strongly in it's re-contextualisation of the Moses story, it's arguably less successful in creating meaningful dialogue about immigration.

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    Wednesday, October 17, 2007

    UK Screenings for (The Margate) Exodus

    Having premièred last month at the Venice Biennale, broadcast dates for The Margate Exodus, or simply Exodus have finally been announced. The Channel 4 première will be on Monday the 19th November, several months later than was originally planned.

    Before that, there will also be 3 theatrical screenings as part of the London Film Festival. The UK première will be on Friday 19th October 2007, 9pm at the Odeon West End in Leicester Square. A week later the film will show again at 9pm at The Ritzy in Brixton. The final showing will be followed by a special concert featuring the artists who contributed to the film's soundtrack. That won't take place until Sunday 28th October 2007 and it will be held at the Barbican Theatre. The film shows at 4pm, with the concert commencing at 7:30.

    More details are available from the official website, although unusually this was one notification I received via a mail out. Given the postal strike which is holding up all sorts of things I'm expecting I'm pleased that this, at least, got through.

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    Friday, September 07, 2007

    First Reviews for Margate Exodus

    I definitely playing catch up to Peter Chattaway at the moment. He's made two posts this week about The Margate Exodus which premièred at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. Peter links to a couple of reviews, (one from The Guardian and the other from Variety) and he's also dug out an article on the film in The Times which discusses the film from the point of view of the extras.

    The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw is less than impressed:
    I was intrigued, but perplexed by another British film, Penny Woolcock's Exodus; it's a dystopian fantasy that parallels the Biblical story of the same name. Some time in the future, a firebrand fascist leader called Pharaoh (Bernard Hill) leads Margate as a secessionist city-state, and herds all the undesirables into a fenced-off zone on the site of the old Dreamland funfair. Part shanty-town, part concentration camp, it's a Sowetànamo of boiling resentment. Pharaoh's son Moses (Daniel Percival) winds up living there, and finds himself destined to lead the people into the promised land. The casting of up-and-comer Claire-Hope Ashitey underlines a resemblance to Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men, though, frankly, without any very convincing or exciting story.
    If I remember rightly, this picture was being filmed last summer, and therefore a good deal of time before the release of Children of Men (my review), so that criticism is a little harsh. That said it's possible that Margate Exodus was inspired by P.D. James's original novel whose Christian themes might more naturally inspire a re-telling of the exodus. Bradshaw definitely deserves some credit, however, for the invention of the word 'Sowetànamo'.

    Alissa Simon's review for Variety is a little more in depth (although it's written in that irritating shorthand that Variety insists on using for the sake of saving 10 letters per article), but this bit was particularly interesting:
    Pic stresses the human costs of fighting fire with fire, and the hypocrisy of saying "God told me to." Powerful ending strikes absolutely the right note.

    Shot on location in Margate, an English coastal town, the pic used locals in all aspects of the production. The fine ensemble cast combines professional thesps and first-timers.

    Kudos to DOP Jakob Ihre, whose moving camera and kinetic compositions make pic an exciting, intimate epic; to production designer Christina Moore for her dystopic vision; and costume designer Suzanne Cave, for her colorful, eclectic creations. Composer Malcolm Lindsay's lush score beautifully supports the action.
    Finally I also found some discussion on this film (and The Times write up from above) by a Margate based blogger claims that the film "marks a turning point for the town by showing that great events can happen here and that Margate can attract the talent, resources and the funding for creative industry".

    There's no news on when this is going to be released over here yet. It was originally going to be shown on Channel 4 during the summer, but summer has been and there's still no news. I spoke briefly to someone at producers Art Angel yesterday, and they confirmed that no broadcast or release date has been set as of yet.

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    Saturday, December 16, 2006

    Another New Bible Film - The Margate Exodus

    Peter Chattaway has a new piece on a film currently in the latter stages of production called The Margate Exodus. As the title suggests it's a modern day version of the Exodus story set in Margate (a seaside town in Kent, England - temporary home to a large number of asylum seekers). The film's official website, calls it "a story about identity and migration". Here's a bit more of the blurb:
    Immigration has never been more meaningful than it is today. Exodus begins with the Egyptians complaining about the immigrant Hebrews – there are too many of them, they’re having too many children. They are ‘the undesirables’ and a problem to get rid of.

    ...Nearby Dover is one of the main entry points for asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, making the area a perfect place to explore issues of identity, tolerance and social equality.
    Despite not having heard anything in the UK press about this (to be honest I've not been paying that much attention), Peter has also found an article on it in The New York Times from a couple of months ago.

    Margate Exodus is the result of a collaboration between Channel 4, Arts group Artangel, Creative Partnerships, Kent, and Arts Council England. Over on Artangel's website, there are a couple of press releases with a few further details. Some of those involved are fairly well known, to me at least. Anthony Gormley has created a number of high profile sculptures recently. I was disappointed to miss director Penny Woodcock's most recent film Mischief Night at the local cinema last month. My wife is a big fan of Rufus Wainwright who is one of the musical collaborators. And Pharaoh will be played by Bernard Hill, who's most successful films are from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but who is best known over here (to those of a certain age) as Yosser Hughes from Boys from the Black stuff.

    The Margate Exodus is due to be released sometime in the summer 2007 both in cinemas and aired on Channel 4, although it is unclear which will come first.

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