Dave and the Giant Pickle (1996)

One of the films I didn't cover in last year's whistle stop tour of David movies was this entry into the popular Veggie-Tales series, Dave and the Giant Pickle. As with most of the other episodes in this series, the leading characters are played by CGI animated, anthropomorphic vegetables in a light hearted manner that seeks to each the kids who comprise its audience with a life lesson. Indeed so well is this lesson-for-the-day aspect established that it no only does it have it's only jingle, but the characters' boredom at this repetitive formula is played for laughs.

The story starts in a psychologist's office where Larry the Cucumber is being treated for what will turn out to be low self-esteem. There's a flashback to the story of David which starts with David trying to control his father's sheep, and his brother's abuse of him, But then a messenger arrives to announce the arrival of Goliath - sorry the, um, Giant Pickle, . Then one day David brings his brothers lunch, is incensed by the Giant Pickle denouncing God and vows to defeat his. Goliath makes his challenge no-one from Israel dare fight him; No-one that is, except for David, who, incensed by the pickle's impudence, tells Saul he will fight the pickle. Saul attempts to kit out David in his own armour, but David goes commando, take up his sling and turns the pickle into relish.

Sorry, that's my joke rather than a line from the film.

There are a couple of interesting moments. Firstly, the arrival of Goliath is prefigured by the same shaking water shot that Spielberg used to such great effect in Jurassic Park (1993) three years earlier. Other contemporary references include one of David's brothers appreciating the cheese filled crust to his Pizza and a series of Rorschach spots which increasingly look like something rather than being entirely random. Maybe that's just me.

But in a fortnight where we've been marketing the 20th anniversary of the release of Toy Story it was amazing to see how badly the CGI on this film compared to that. The CGI has not aged at all well.

That said, the kids loved it, and some of the tunes have come back to us through the day. So whilst Dave and the Giant Pickle might not be great art, it certainly amused and engaged its target audience.

Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie

Through the Bible in Five and a Half Years has got as far as Jonah now, so I thought it was time for a long overdue review of 2002's Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie. Incidentally, I'm still deciding whether or not to use a clip from this film, but I think I will probably show a different short film version which I'm linking to here so I can find it easily in future.

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For some reason Jonah has always been a popular children's story (despite being about a man-eating fish), and as a result there have been various cartoon versions over the years including an entry in the Testament: The Bible in Animation series.Yet, it's one that's been largely avoided by filmmakers. In the early days the technical challenges of the pivotal scene were far beyond the film's likely profitability. More recently, however, I suspect it's been the length of the story that has put off potential adapters. At just 4 short chapters there's not a huge amount to go on (although the majority of Hollywood blockbusters could have their plots scribed on the back of a postage stamp, so that's hardly critical).

Jonah circumnavigates this problem by telling Jonah's tale as a story within a story. The biblical tale is framed by a modern day story of a group en route to a gig, who get lost when their car breaks down. They stumble into a restaurant and meet three pirates who observing the animosity amongst the group, decide to tell them the story as a means to getting them to resolve their differences.

The story is presented as an account of events that actually happened to the pirates, but chronologically this wouldn't work at all, particularly when you consider that these pirates are not humans but harvested vegetables. So the link to the material is slightly detached: there's something vaguely reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz here in the way that the people in the framing device are inextricably linked to those in the story, but also somewhat detached.

All of which forms a rather interesting interpretative context in which to place the book of Jonah. Many scholars consider the book to be a kind of parable rather than an account of actual historical events, and so presenting the tale of Jonah as a story within a story fits this dynamic. Furthermore, since the book of Kings briefly mentions the prophet Jonah, there is that kind of link between him and the parable's anti-hero.

One of the things the film gets right is its portrayal of Jonah as an absurd figure. True to the biblical text Jonah is grumpy and proud, and his cartoonish characterisation fits the spirit of the original's portrayal rather well. It also includes the often overlooked final chapter of the book, and grasps that this is this, rather than the fishier elements of the story, that forms the book's interpretative key.

The film does tweak some of the other details however: Nineveh's primary sin is slapping each other with fish, which rather leaves the story run stranded in shallow waters; Jonah manages to get the king's attention when he is arrested because of his pirate friends; and his message grabs the attention of the fish-venerating Ninevites sole-ly because he happens to refer to his time inside the big fish. I'm curious to know whether that final point reflects an older tradition in any way, or some kind of historical knowledge. If so I've not yet encountered it in commentaries I've read.The biggest set piece in the story is obviously Jonah getting swallowed by the big fish. The book devotes a whole chapter to Jonah's prayer, which, from a dramatic point of view, works in the same way as a musical's biggest song and dance number. What's more the whole incident is shrouded in supernatural events (not only the fish but the storm, Jonah being highlighted by the casting of lots and the subsequent calming of the storm when his is ejected overboard).

The film, also gives plenty of attention to this incident, saving its most ambitious CGI for what is it's longest scene (the modern day equivalent of a miracle?). And once Jonah has been swallowed up, his prayer is indeed replaced with the film's biggest song and dance number - a black gospel number performed by a choir of singing vegetable angels. All of which is possible because Jonah has been swallowed by a whale rather than a big fish. I suspect that the Hebrew mind would have classified whales along with fish rather than with mammals, so this distinction is rather minor. What is interesting is that in the film's closing number - a summary of the story and its message - Jonah's story is illustrated using a fish. So the film backs both theories, deftly representing the ancient classifications.

The one character I've not yet discussed is Jonah's eternally optimistic sidekick, Khalil, a half worm, half caterpillar business man worm-pillar - the 'Donkey' to Jonah's Shrek, if you like. But his role gains far greater prominence in the books final act, for it is he who becomes the worm who eats the plant Jonah is using for shade. When Jonah confronts him Khalil then utters the words that God speaks at the end of the book.

What this highlights is the direct absence of God in the film. God speaks directly four times in the book, at the start, after the fish has spat Jonah out, when the Ninevites repent, and when the plant dies. Here we never hear him speak, though we witness Jonah hearing God when he prays at the beginning of the story, the middle too occurrences are skipped over, and at the end it is Khalil that speaks for God. This secularises the text somewhat. God is held at a distance so that even the miraculous elements of the story could be down to coincidence. It's not a major problem, but it is yet another example of VeggieTales sanitising the text.

Visually the film is rather poor. It always feels like an extended episode of a TV show rather than anything cinematic and the colour scheme often clashes. There are bright blue backgrounds, but dull yellow foregrounds, shiny green vegetables, but a lot of dirty yellow and grimy clothes. The whale sports a particularly repulsive olive green and yellow look and even Jonah looks off colour for much of the film.

The songs are fairly good though, echoing various musicals from down the ages, and the soundtrack includes a nice nod to Jaws as the whale closes in on the barely floating prophet. And so what I'm left with is "Jonah was a prophet" going round and round in my head. I'm told that the Germans call this an 'ear worm', which in the context a film which uses a worm not only to act for, but also to speak for God is certainly an intriguing metaphor.

A Few Thoughts on VeggieTales: Esther, the Girl Who Became Queen

I've made a few posts on Esther and, by coincidence, the other week at church Nina (my 2 year old) and her pals were sat down to watch VeggieTales: Esther, the Girl Who Became Queen (2000). I had watched this once before, but as I was looking after Nina anyway I was keen to re-watch it given both my currrent exploration and my criticisms of it in a previous post. My major bone of contention then was that,

the Veggie Tales series sanitises the story to such an extent that it removes all dramatic tension from the film whatsoever. The Jews aren't at risk of being wiped out by a jealous megalomaniac. They simply are in danger of being exiled to the island of perpetual tickling. I must admit I don't understand the approach of this series and other attempts to purge the Bible of mentions of death, unpleasantness and other aspects of real life. Sooner or later children will learn about death, and that it's in the Bible, and the longer this goes on, the harder it will hit them.

That was actually written before I became a parent, but I still largely standby what I wrote. Whilst I wouldn't want children unnecessarily traumatised, I do think death is part and parcel of life, and there seems little point to me in adapting a story if you are going to purge it so thoroughly of its primary narrative momentum. Just do a different story.

Film is such a powerful and accessible medium that altering, as opposed to simply editing, a story inhibits a child's ability to know a story later in life. They have to undo their previous understanding as well as grasp for the first time what the story actually says. Obviously much of these alterations are humorous and are made to make the story more entertaining, which I accept is part and parcel of the whole Bible film sub-genre. At the same time, I'm frequently amazed at how few evangelical Christians are, in any sense, disturbed by some of the Old Testament stories. I think one of the main reasons that this is the case is that, early on, and, primarily thereafter, sadly, they are told the sanitised versions of the stories rather than confronted with a straightforward version of the text. The fact that the story ends with large numbers of the Jewish people's enemies being killed fails to trouble the majority of evangelicals simply because it is either minimised or omitted entirely from most re-tellings of the story that they will have heard. Anyway, revisiting the film gave me the chance to re-evaluate how the film handles the original story. The first scene of the film I got to see was the contest to decide the next queen. In the Bible this contest is essentially about Ahasuerus having sex with the (presumably) best looking virgins in his kingdom and choosing the one he enjoyed the most. Different films portray this differently, for example One Night With the King, despite the sexually suggestive title, plays this more like a beauty contest. The sexual aspect is still there, but it's very much toned down.

By contrast, in the Veggie Tales version the decision is made on the basis of a talent contest - queen idol if you like. Esther's song moves the king and she gets chosen as queen. On top of this, it appears that the king (pictured below) is significantly older and physically unattractive, although it's hard to know for what passes for beautiful amongst vegetables. This again minimises any notions of romance and /or sex that dominate most of the other Esther films. Of course, portraying things as they really were would not be appropriate for young children, but why include this part of the story at all? All we need to know in order to keep the story moving is that Ahasuerus chose Esther.Whilst we're on the subject of this contest, it's notable that Esther sings a particularly Jewish sounding song. This means she emphasises her Jewish identity rather than conceals it as Mordecai actually urged her to do in the original story.

One final observation is that Haman is not only planning to kill Mordecai and behind the command to wipe out all the Jews, but he is also behind the attempted assassination of the king. This places Haman in an even worse light than the Old Testament does and thus makes Xerxes' decision between his right hand man and his queen significantly more straightforward than it would have been.