David (2025)

It's been eight months since Angel Studios' animated family-friendly musical David (2025) was released in the USA, but next month it will finally open in the UK, with a seemingly decent selection of cinemas lined up to screen it. This is something that is becoming increasingly common for animated biblical children's films, following Noah's Ark: A Musical Adventure (Arca de Noé, Brazil) in 2024 and last year's The King of Kings (South Korea).

Opening titles

The film opens saying it's "Based on the story of David from 1 & 2 Samuel" and while the reason it doesn't mention the Davidic material in 1 Chronicles is probably just for the sake of brevity, it does also capture nicely the breadth of material the film covers, as the narrative in Chronicles begins just before the start of David's reign.

The other thing that is included in those opening titles is "'The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart.' 1 Samuel 13:14" and while the use of a specifically Protestant, American, Christian translation (the NASB) is clearly one that corresponds closely to the film's largest expected demographic, it's also a pertinent example of the film's wider appropriation of ancient Jewish/Hebrew narratives to create an American Christian story for the 21st century.[1]    

This verse is particularly notable because, as I pointed out in my last piece on House of David, it's one that is paraphrased by Paul/Luke in the New Testament (Acts 13:22) which gives it a greater significance. (The Book of Samuel also says David "showed utter disrespect for the Lord" (2 Sam 12:14), but that's not part of the story the film is seeking to convey). As with House of David, David is not only Jesus' ancestor and a man "after God's own heart" but a "type" (foreshadowing) for Jesus.

The boy who would be king

We meet David as a boy who is both an animal-loving shepherd (who has a deep connection with his flock) while also being tough and brave in fending off a lion, a story he relays in the Bible when trying to make a case for his suitability as a potential giant-slayer (1 Sam 17). He recovers in time to burst in on a visit to his parents' house by the prophet Samuel. Within minutes, David has been anointed a future king of Israel.

With the anointing oil still dripping from his hair, he is summoned to the palace of the existing king, Saul, who is caught in the depths of a depressive episode.[2] All the musicians in the nation have been called to provide some music to ease his troubles(as Saul had apparently found great comfort in it previously). David is eager to serve and, as he doesn't share his fellow musicians' fear of Saul's black mood, he finds himself alone in the throne room with his lyre.

Saul here is a man of massive stature – reminiscent of Orson Welles in David e Golia (1959) for those who have seen it – yet David not only tames him, but also begins cueing in all the other musicians, emboldening them in their now shared task.

This scene nicely sets up much of what is to unfold. Firstly, David's seeming lack of fear of this huge, angry man anticipates him facing the giant Goliath. Just as the other musicians here (and it is emphasised that it is "all" musicians) quiver in fear, so too will the entire army quake before the enormous Philistine. But it also cues up the way that much of the rest of the film will revolve around Saul's anger towards David and David's ability to rally people around him in the face of such a threat.

Connecting the threads

Unaware of his future, David returns home and chats with his mother, Nitzevet, a name known to us from the Jewish Talmud, but it's interesting that she wears a Mary-esque blue headdress, again reinforcing the typology that links David to Jesus. Not dissimilarly, she is portrayed as a nurturing mother who passes on to David important teaching, a little like Mary does to Jesus in later Christian tradition.

Rather than setting one of David’s many Psalms to music, the filmmakers wrote a new song “Tapestry”, in which Nitzevet sings to her son. The gist of the song is that when we focus on individual threads in a tapestry, we don't see how they connect in the overall picture, that "the creator has designed". 

While the song isn't based on a Psalm, it's interesting that a few recognisable lines from the Psalms are incorporated into the lyrics. A reference to the shepherd and the sheep seems like a nod to Psalm 23. "Lift your eyes above the hills" hints at Psalm 121. Perhaps most noticeable is the line from Psalm 139, "Like the way we work the loom, he knit you from inside the womb". This is, of course, the prooftext most-used by many Christians – and not just those of a politically conservative persuasion – to argue for a pro-life / anti-choice position regarding women’s reproductive rights. Of course, the mention of "knit" ties into the song's textile-based theme, but it also feels like a point is being made rather heavy-handedly.

From an aesthetic point of view, it's the film's most colourful and visually-pleasing scene. It's also noticeable that its theme is picked up again in musical form in one of the film's final pieces of music, when various melodies and lyrics from the songs that have appeared earlier in the film are woven together for a finale.

Goliath

It's always interesting in films about David to see which parts of the story are included, but almost all of them feature the fight with Goliath. Here it occurs relatively early on. One of the things the film does consistently is elevate David's bravery relative to the original text. Firstly, David not only strikes the lion in the opening scene, but risks life and limb charging head on into a collision with it. Then David is shown to be the bravest of all the musicians (as opposed to just being called specifically based on his reputation). 

So, of course, the Goliath he faces isn't just a 9'6" giant (or even a 6'6" one according to the earliest texts – see my post on that) but more than twice the size even of the towering Saul, who seems tiny by comparison. While the animation in the film is very good (particularly compared to the CGI in other faith-based Bible films) I really didn't like the design of the Philistines in general and the Arnie-inspired Goliath in particular.

Nevertheless, the scene doesn't disappoint and there's a great sequence which segues from a God-shot (just as Goliath is mocking the idea of him fighting Israel's god) into a shot of the sun which is then interrupted by the David's sling whipping across the screen with increasing frequency as he winds up that legendary shot.

And there's more

What particularly interests me as a scholar of the Bible on film is, given that this famous episode occurs roughly at the half-way point in the film, where does the script go after that?

David films tend to end in one of three places. Firstly, right after the victory over Goliath itself. Given that in the popular imagination David is known primarily for defeating Goliath, it's not only the climax of the most famous story about him, but also a huge dramatic high point. Indeed in most of the modernised, metaphorical, adaptations of the story – not least a league of sports films – the story ends just after the David-figure has gained victory over their respective Goliath-figure. Even David and Bathsheba (1951), which mainly focuses on the backsliding troubled ruler we encounter from the middle of 2 Samuel, ends up back at the Goliath scene, via a flashback to his famous victory from his younger days. 

Secondly, and perhaps more obviously, there is somewhere around the point of his death. Even if you have to edit some episodes out for brevity, this at least tells the story of his life. These films tend to enjoy the complexity of David's life, his "taking" of Bathsheba and the inter-family conflict that follows. Finally, some productions, particularly those where Saul is prominent, end somewhere around his death and David becoming king.

Given that David's "taking" of Bathsheba is arguably not age-appropriate for a kids film, David was always likely to take the third option and indeed it ends with its titular hero not only crowned king with the support of the people, but a sizeable and now confident army also acclaiming him. 

David's rise [spoilers]

Like most of this sub-group of David films, David's accession to the crown is less messy than it is in the Bible (where Saul's son Eshbaal is initially crowned king of the ten northern tribes, before he gets murdered). David's various marriages (and unconventional dowry payments) are left out. While Saul still throws a spear at David, the details of how Michal and Jonathan aid his escape are condensed. Likewise, the costly support of the priests of Nob is reduced to a fleeting visual reference; David only spares Saul's life once; and Saul never consults the Witch of Endor. Moreover, the time David spends fighting for, and then being rejected by, the Philistines is reduced to a plan where David intends to help Saul by pretending to fight for the Philistines, before turning to fight for Israel.

David's plan, though, never comes to fruition, because moments before the armies clash, David realises that the Amalekites have attacked Ziklag, where the families of he and his men are staying (1 Sam 30). This is an episode that most David films leave out to the extent that I had pretty much forgotten it even existed. Here, though, the film turns it into a finale. Here, David is not initially followed by any of his men, but relies on the families to help him oppose the Amalekites. As if to underline the point about David prefiguring Jesus even more heavily, the Amalekites capture him and literally fix him to a tree in a cruciform pose. But the wives and children rise to their feet, Spartacus-style, singing the line "I will not be afraid". Realising that they are actually outnumbered, the Amalekites turn and flee. 

While I found this scene (and the build-up to it) a little weak dramatically, and rather clichéd, I'm intrigued at its inclusion, particularly given that the proportion of children's films which end with human on human warfare is very low. Israel's army has already learnt this lesson, at least when confronted with the Philistines. Is the point here to present two forms of enemy, the more conventional army of the Philistines and the darker powers of the Amalekites (who only appear as black silhouettes and who appear to dress more unconventionally also)? Or is this making the point that the determination not to fear enemies is not just something for men, but for women and children too? I suppose it could even be making the point that while men might battle the flesh and blood enemies with weapons, that women and children can oppose the powers of darkness with words alone? Perhaps I'm reading in too much. 

David and The Prince of Egypt

However that scene is meant to be interpreted, David is crowned-but-not-actually-crowned afterwards (tabbarded?) and stands upon a rock high above the people, literally ending the film on a high. I can't help but be reminded of The Prince of Egypt (1998) where Moses stands similarly elevated, partly put there, as the scene's soundtrack reminds us, by the faith of the women more than the men. 

Certainly, this is not the only example of David referencing The Prince of Egypt (1998). Earlier on, there's a nice montage coming into Saul's city including scenes of the city being constructed. Not only is all of this reminiscent of the extensive building works in Prince of Egypt, there's even a statue being sculpted which resembles the monuments in the earlier film.

More broadly speaking, the bromance between David and Jonathan also seems to tap into the friendship between Moses and Rameses in Prince of Egypt's opening scenes. I think Jonathan even calls David "brother" at one point.

Perhaps the real clincher though is the wall decorations in Saul's palace (and note that in contrast to all these films, the Bible doesn't recall Saul having a palace, only a "house" (e.g. 1 Sam 18:10)  which depict Saul and David in the Valley of Elah in a fashion that strongly resembles Prince of Egypt's famous hieroglyphics.

So how is it as a film?

David wants to deliver an entertaining, positive and uplifting movie based on the Bible. The animation (aside from Goliath and the Philistines) is good, especially when directors Phil Cunningham and Brent Dawes use it to do things that a conventional camera could not achieve. The songs are fairly memorable and include some clever touches.

Yet while there is a positive and uplifting message, the selecting and wrangling of the material to achieve those aims falls a little short entertainment-wise. From the moment Goliath lands flat on his face the film starts to decelerate. IMDb gives the film's length as 1h49m. Even allowing for Cunningham's minute-long message to camera during the credits, that is a long time for a film where kids will constitute a significant part of the audience.

Moreover, while David's story does contain some incredible highs, there is a lot of failure and pain in Samuel as well. (Even his becoming king is marred by the deaths of his predecessor, whom he loved, and his best friend, which the film shows but doesn't really consider).

Those previous two paragraphs perhaps sound a little too negative, given the generally solid film-making, with some great touches, overall good voice work and well-rounded main character. If it doesn't hit the highs of The Prince of Egypt, it's certainly the best animated feature based on the Hebrew Bible since.

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David will be in UK cinemas from August 21st and can be seen in many other parts of the world via Angel Studios. I was provided with a screener to review this film.

That said, more than half of the film is now already available to view (legally) through Angel's YouTube channel if you want to get a feel for it. Peter Chattaway has compiled them into a nice list in the order in which they appear. Peter also notes that when the film opened in the USA on the 19th December, it finished 2nd in the weekend Box Office, with only Avatar 2 ahead of it. 

1 – The word "appropriation" isn't necessarily negative here, after all this is what all biblical films do. An animated children's film shot in ancient Hebrew would be unlikely to find much of an audience across North and South America and Europe. Nevertheless, this feels like a particularly selective and distinctly Christian reading of this, originally Jewish, story.

2 - I've written a more in-depth piece about Saul's mental health, in this piece about the portrayal of Saul in The Bible (2013).

Was Goliath a giant? Height differences and Saul

Image from David (2025)

Somewhere before I've made the following point about the height comparison between Saul and Goliath, but I can't seem to locate where so I'll lay it out again. While most translations of the Bible still give Goliath's height as "six cubits and a span" (around 9'6") this is because either they are too old to know better, or because – often in contravention of their stated approaches to ancient manuscript selection – they prefer to preserve "tradition" over best practice.

One of the few exceptions here is the NRSVUE (even the earlier version of the NRSV get this wrong). It gives Goliath's height as "four cubits and a span" (around 6'6"). A footnote states "Q ms Gk: MT six". This means that there are variations here between manuscripts. The Masoretic text (MT) gives the height as six cubits and a span, but both the Dead Sea Scrolls text (Q) and the Greek Septuagint text (Gk) give the height as just four cubits and a span. Because "we" ave known about the Masoretic text the longest, it's the one that became the standard, but since then we have discovered the older, (therefore written closer to the original) Dead Sea Scrolls text. 

Sorry if that's a bit complicated, but essentially, faced with two older texts that say Goliath was four cubits and a span; and one more recent text that say it was six cubits the most likely scenario is that the doubly attested shorter Goliath is the closer match to the original text. This is particularly true given (as many David films have amply demonstrated) later adaptations have a tendency to exaggerate the story to make it seem more exciting and/or give God/David more credit. It's really hard to imagine a scenario where anyone would want to the tell the story making the giant seem shorter.

The thing is that if Goliath really were only 6'6" this does change the story a lot, because Goliath was not the only tall person on the battlefield that week. 1 Sam 9:2 describes Saul as being "head and shoulders above everyone else". It's hard to give a precise figure from such a malleable description, but it would suggest he was also well over 6 foot and more importantly he was also in a special category size-wise.

In other words, perhaps the point here is that this was meant to be Saul's fight. Goliath was the Philistine's champion and he calls out Israel's champion, their super tall warrior, their best fighter (as was fairly typical of tribal leaders in those days). He calls out Saul. But Saul is has a crisis of confidence. He fails to trust God (in contrast to David). It's just another way in which the text wants to shame Saul and glorify David. And I suppose the way the textual translation of the text has gone has softened that criticism of Saul a bit through time. Even a 6'6" man would baulk at fighting a man who is perhaps even 9'9". And perhaps given Saul clearly had very poor mental health, maybe cutting him some slack (even if through the medium of poor translation) is not the worst thing in the world.

House of David (2026) s2e04

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). There are some major spoilers in what follows even though most are 2500 years old.

Plot

Flashback to David's first trip to the Tabernacle where his presence caused an outrage. In the story's present day we see David has been telling Mychal about that day. Saul tells Avner to get Joab to kill the one Samuel anointed. Everyone prepares to go to the Tabernacle, except Eliab who is going with Joab and Ahinoam who Saul has banned. Merab tries to reach out to David but he spurns her attempts. Joab takes Eliab on a mission to kill the newly anointed king, but then kills Jesse's neighbours instead of Jesse's household. David rashly charges into battle losing men and Jonathan rebukes him while Merab comforts him.

Meanwhile the Philistines continue in their pursuit of an iron sword as good as Goliath's. The priests of Nob warn Saul that he will have to go through them to get to Samuel. Eshbaal attempts to seduce his wife Dinah, only for her to pull a blade on him. Mychal tells David she won't fight for him if her father has decided he should marry Merab. Eliab considers suicide. Saul attempts to convince Samuel's wife Hila to persuade  her husband to reaffirm his support for Saul as king.

Samuel prays a Tabernacle prayer including words from Ps.86/Ps.103. Jonathan tells Samuel he knows David is the anointed one. Adriel tells David it was he who gave the false name to Saul. The Tabernacle ceremony is completed. David kneels a sings a lament for his slain comrade. Jonathan reaffirms his commitment to David. Mychal tells Merab she won't stand in her way. Sara rejects Jonathan because she secretly holds him responsible for her brother's death. Eliab cannot speak to David, but his other men start to sing in his song as they ride back from Nob.

This episode was fairly mundane, especially given there has already been quite a lot of story-building in the previous two outings. Essentially Saul's court and many others move to Nob to the Tabernacle for the Feast of the Tabernacles and there are various elements of human intrigue on the way: Saul leaves Ahinoam behind as punishment; Eliab thought he was going, but Joab takes him on a mission (but then they manage to make it anyway); Saul is trying to persuade Samuel to re-legitimise him, even trying to get Samuel's wife on his side; David's men, including Uriah, are a bit unsure whether he is really a leader they can follow.

Biblical love triangle

What I wanted to explore a bit more was the love triangle between Mychal, David and Merab, which twists and turns throughout the episode, but, crucially, without ever really getting very interesting. Indeed, while I use the term "love triangle", perhaps a better – albeit less enticing – way to describe it might be as a strategic-marriage triangle. While Mychal and David certainly love each other, David is not at all interested in Merab, and she is only interested in him because she believes he is likely to be the best option for her future.

The problem is that, from a dramatic point of view, this makes things all a little bit dull. Typically, love-triangles are introduced to bring drama and interest into the story, with tension and passion all round. Boundaries are crossed, kisses (and perhaps more) happen, that really shouldn't have happened, lovers/friends are betrayed.

In contrast, House of David's love triangle has some hurt feelings, but it's devoid of any kind of real passion. And the fact that much of the audience will know that Mychal will eventually get to marry David, also doesn't help generate narrative tension. 

Biblical productions (indeed all ancient historical adaptations) tend to lie on a continuum between "the past is another country" and "we're not too different you and I". The programme-makers have to make the story relatable in someway to their audience, but at the same time they know if they modernise things too then far historians and (with Bible films, church-goers) will object. The degree to which a production sits along that continuum varies, though some programme makers opt for doing something that's neither historical, nor very easy to relate to.

House of David's strategic-marriage triangle is a classic example of this. On the one hand everyone "knows" that sons and daughters of kings/tribal leaders were married off to build alliances (although the degree to which this is true is up for debate). But House of David is already so invested in the 'historical' idea that it's Mychal's father who gets to choose whom his daughters marry, that it's not really that unpalatable to us when he picks Merab to marry David, rather than Mychal.

So, while Mychal is annoyed at her sister, it never really feels much more than a sisterly spat that will soon be resolved. Mychal may be put out by her sister gaining approval from their father to marry David, but the show is so committed to this framework that you imagine she can also sympathise with Merab. As this is far outside of the typical audience member's experience (where people tend to marry for love) its attempts at historical context have detracted from its "relatability". 

However, on the "historical" side of the continuum there are also problems. The historical David, at least the one from the pages of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and Psalms, was passionate and hot-blooded. More to the point, he was not – by any stretch of the imagination – a one-woman-kinda-guy. Not only did he have at least eight wives, but his lack of scruples in taking a woman he saw from his palace and having her brought into his bedroom, suggests this was probably not the only time this happened (just the only time he got caught). 

But the David from House of David isn't at all like this. There was some initial chemistry in season 1 between David and Mychal, but this seems to have evaporated. David does seem to love Mychal, but their relationship is so oddly pure and chaste. They want to be married, but neither seems to desire sexual intimacy (even delaying it for marriage, or whatever). And Merab doesn't even seem attracted to David, she just sees him as having good prospects.  

Much of this derives from the specifically Christian way the showrunners read David, that is through the lens of Jesus and the New Testament. Three related strands stand out in particular. Firstly David is seen as Jesus' ancestor (see the genealogies in Matt 1 and Luke 3). Secondly, David is seen as a man "after God's own heart" (Acts13:22 citing 1 Sam 13) which tends to be read as about purity of character, even though that doesn't seem to be the focus of either Testament's original use of it. Thirdly, David is seen as a "type" for Christ, that is a foreshadowing, a point of comparison.

Its easy, then, to comprehend why this leads to a specific reading of David: no-one want to think of one's God (i.e. Jesus) being both descended from and similar in character to a polygamist rapist, least of all within evangelical circles where purity culture still holds sway. Therefore, David and Mychal are presented as model teenagers: beautiful, attracted to one another, respectful of the patriarchy, and (presumably) saving sex for marriage.

The problem, then, is that this is not only stretches historical credibility, but is also hard to relate to. Even the teens who buy into the idea of purity culture still typically desire sexual intimacy, they just ascribe to waiting until married. Effectively, then, House of David has taken a character who seems like exactly the kind of person to be involved in a love triangle, and created a scenario where he is indeed the centre of two sisters' attentions, but then contrived to make it oddly lack in passion and desire. You don't have to enjoy onscreen nudity to find its lack of sexual tension dull.

Same issue, different approach?

It's interesting, then, that in this same episode we also get a glimpse into sexual desire after marriage in the lives of Israel's early royals. Mychal and Merab's brother Eshbaal has married Dina, partly out of duty and partly for attraction, but she has never really reciprocated and only agreed to marry him in the previous episode "on condition she doesn't bear him an heir or have to pretend to love him".

Despite knowing this, Eshbaal tries to seduce her. This is hardly surprising for a character who has been set up as the opposite to David. Eventually the two will become rival heirs to Saul's throne and warring kings. David will triumph, but I guess there's a need to contrast him to Eshbaal, so it seems fair when David wins. So Eshbaal tends to be a little erratic, passionate and wayward, even spending some time with the Philistines after an argument with his father Saul.

Eshbaal reneging on his deal cuts no ice with Dina, who pulls a knife on him. When he complains "you'd rather ride a horse than have my child" she answers back. 

"Than have any man's child. So much pain and suffering, a swollen belly, the risk of death! For what? A moment of pleasure?"

On the one hand this is clever way to deal with the fact that Eshbaal (who is admittedly hardly mentioned in the genealogies in 1 Chron 8:33-36; 9:39-42) is never ascribed any children – unusual for a one-time king of Israel, even if the Chronicler tries to air-brush him out of the story – particularly as giving him children might raise issues around succession when he dies.

Yet at the same time Dina's words being delivered in such close proximity to the Mychal-David-Merab relationship reaching its apex read like they could be seeking to reinforce a similar message to anyone tempted to spurn David and Mychal's example. Words like "pain and suffering, a swollen belly, the risk of death! For what? A moment of pleasure?" feel like they are straight from the pages of a leaflet advocating abstinence as a form of birth control.

That said, I quite like Dina's general takes-no-crap attitude. Perhaps that's intentional, a way of catering to cynics like me, giving us a vaguely feminist character to cheer for.

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I was going to end this saying "No sex please, we're bronze-aged Levantine princesses", but I imagine the reference to the early 1970s British comedy film No Sex Please, We're British,  starring Ronnie Corbett will be lost to most who didn't grow up watching early evening TV in 1980s Britain.

Quo Vadis (1924)

Gabriellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby's 1924 Italian silent is not one of the more popular adaptations of Henryk Sienkiewicz's 1896 novel "Quo Vadis?", but it has now been given a decent restoration by Nederlands Filmmuseum who have made it available to watch on YouTube. 

Italian cinema found itself in a precarious state after the First World War. While the European nations were fighting among themselves, the American film industry was migrating to Hollywood (especially over the period 1911-1916) and making the most of the lack of competition from overseas. The resulting economic problems in much of Europe saw the number of Italian-made films dropped off from 371 in 1920 to just eight a decade later (1) as Mussolini's Black Shirts took power.

In an attempt to rally, Arturo Ambrosio attempted to return to the historical films of Italian silent cinema's glory days, namely Cabiria (1914) and, more pertinently, the 1913 version of Quo Vadis? Despite it's huge budget, the film flopped and, alongside the similarly disastrous Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii, 1926) took down the Italian epic for over a decade.(2)

Despite the public derision at the time (3), the film is pretty good. Certainly the expensive sets and costumes still look remarkable, particularly the scenes of Rome burning and the resultant punishment of the Christians in the arena are massive in scale, but not lacking in detail. The only off thing here is how most of the arena shots seem to be set in the Colosseum, but then suddenly they are in an arena big enough to host a chariot race (which presumably would have taken place in the Circo Massimo). Initially I thought that this was some used footage from the initial, disastrous, Italian-based shoot of Ben-Hur (1925), but a closer examination of the architecture of the arena remains consistent, even if the camera's placement feels like a little break in the continuity. 

Biblical content

The film is a bit more faithful to the book that the most famous 1951 adaptation, although it plays with the order a little and whereas the book (and the 1951 version) features both Paul and Peter, here Paul's  part is all rolled into that of Peter. So it's Peter that counsels the Christian heroine Lygia (American Lillian Hall-Davis) towards the start of the film.

We get several scenes inside the catacombs, included the shot above, where the lighting and composition are just beautiful. The use of the slope here is not just aesthetic, it enables Peter to be portrayed as still the humble fisherman of the Gospels, but also as a towering, elevated figure, already far closer to heaven than those who follow him. Of course, given this film was made where is it was, when it was, it's not surprising to see Peter's role built up and given primacy in this way.

There are also several scenes/moments not found in the book. Of particular relevance here is the flashback to the Via Dolorosa in the lead up to Jesus' crucifixion. Unlike the 1951 film, D'Annunzio and Jacoby are happy to show Jesus's face, not only from a distance, and then in a mid-shot, but also miraculously wiped onto Veronica's cloth. The quality of the image in this footage is significantly distorted compared to the rest of the film. I almost wonder if this too is a later insertion, either from an earlier Jesus film (or a significantly degraded later one) or of footage that was originally left on the cutting room floor. You can see what I mean at 1h42m17s.

Lastly, from a Bible-adjacent context, we get Jesus' appearance on the Appian Way (I guess the intention here might be to juxtapose the Via Dolorosa scene with the Via Appia Antica, particularly as they appear just 5 minutes apart). Here Jesus is shown (above)  as only a largely transparent, ghostly figure and his brief appearance is marred by a rare bit of damage on the filmstock. Peter does say the words "Quo Vadis, Domine?" before they fade into the translation. Interestingly the film has Peter persuaded by his closest confidants to leave Rome, so Jesus' rebuke seems a tad harsh,

Quo Vadis? and Fascism

D'Annunzio and Jacoby's adaptation arrived only two years after Mussolini came to power, so came very early in his 21-year regime. In some ways its an unusual choice for a film, at least aside from the previous adaptation proving to be a financial success. Essentially, it's a story that tells the story of an egotistical, Rome-based, dictator, so this could easily be seen as risky territory, particularly given that it concerns his conflict with the church of Rome. That said  D'Annunzio's father Gabriele, had been a significant influence on Mussolini and so this probably afforded the film sympathetic reception.

At the same time "(e)ven before the March on Rome in 1922, the Fascist party had constructed its own identity and legitimised its actions through the tropes of an ancient Rome reborn".(4)

The potentially negative parallel with Mussolini is also offset, or at least made more ambiguous / contradictory (itself a hallmark of small eff fascist filmmaking) by a number of factors. Firstly, while Emil Jannings portrays Nero, as per normal, as a childish, egotistical, psychopath, the film seems to make it clear that this is just him, not his constitutional position.

This becomes particularly true as the film reaches its climax, whereby the legions are described as having "Proclaimed Galba Emperor and are marching on Rome", something we're told "The city welcome". The specific use of "marching on Rome" is a clear reference to Mussolini's own (somewhat mythologised" March on Rome, particularly given it's not how Galba's rise to power is typically described. The fact that Galba held power for just 7 months also seems to have escaped scrutiny.

One further detail on this is that Nero kills himself as a troop of Roman soldiers bear down on him. Learning of his death they turn to their leader (who I think is Vincinius) and give the "Roman" salute (see above) and he returns it, which I suppose brings the Roman church into alignment with the Roman state in a decidedly fascist manner. I should point out that the Roman salute actually derives from the 18th century).

Fascism, crowds and spectacle?

There's a line of thinking that links fascism to the body. James Hay, for example, argues that

By accommodating masses of people, often for whom the central characters acted, the historical spectacles seemed to address a more extensive and consolidated audience. It is no wonder, therefore, that these films became ideal vehicles for presenting nationalistic themes. Through these throngs of extras, mass audiences were given a stake in the films, action, and they were able to visualise on the screen their own collectivity.(5)

Quo Vadis? very much fits the bill here. As with its predecessor and the majority of the biblical epics that have followed, the crowds of extras are seen in numerous scenes: Nero's "regal banquet"; Nero performing his music to a large crowd; the chaotic street scenes as the crows try to escape from Rome's fire; the arena scenes, naturally; and even the underground scenes of the early church at worship. And the sheer size of some of these crowds, in combination with the film's impressive architecture, give the film a sense of spectacle and power

What I find particularly interesting is how these crowds – totally opposed to one another at the start of the film – come together as it progresses. Gradually Nero's retinue deserts him and becomes more sympathetic to the Christians, such that ultimately the crowd in the arena – having turned up to see the slaughter – eventually take the Christian's side (as well as Galba's).

The is reinforced by the use of the camera. In the scenes in the catacombs it is very much located in and amongst the crowd (see top image) whereas in the orgy scene, the camera is typically placed in a slightly elevated position (though to a lesser extent with two-shots etc.). Likewise in the climatic arena scene, initially the camera's eye-line is within in the arena, but gradually switches to a seat in the stands and accompanied by individual reactions of nameless characters in the crowd ("She is a mother" one woman cries as the race wears on). Thus whereas Wyke is correct to observe that "(r)epeatedly, however, as Nero peers through his emerald ring... the camera takes up his point of view", (Wyke 129-30) it is important to note that ultimately that point of view deserts him in favour of the Christians and a more worthy candidate for Emperor.

Body Violence

There are further associations between the body and fascist cinema, both in terms of physical perfection and in terms of suffering, endurance and ordeal. These ideas were put forth by Susan Sontag in her stinging takedown of Leni Riefenstahl's photography book "The Last of the Nuba" (1974) which, Sontag argues, suggests that Riefenstahl's thinking had not moved on as much as she would have the world believe.(6) 

While there is less of a focus on physical perfection here (certainly compared to the cinema of our own day) this film does appear to increase the amount of violence against the human body, particularly compared to other adaptations. Even in the film's opening scene – where Nero relaxes by a fountain surrounded by beautiful women and apparently sycophantic men –  one unfortunate woman is thrown into pool full of Lamprey eels who devour her.   

On top of this we also get:

1. Nero attempting to rape Lygia only for Ursus (Lygia's Maciste-like slave and protector) to intervene and throttle / fishhook the emperor,
2. the burning of Rome, which is more widescale distress than specific body-violence,
3. once Nero blames the Christians, his retribution is to burn them on flaming on crosses. This is shot with some close-ups, and others where those are just the background in a prolonged scene,
4. Petronius and Eunice's suicides, where we see a "surgeon" slicing their wrists
5. Nero's own suicide, by stabbing himself in the neck

Of course, the biggest scene of violence against the body occurs in the arena where we witness various Christians being mauled by lions; dragged through the dirt during a chariot race and then finally Lygia being strapped to the back of a bull who Ursus has to fight with his bare hands.(7) In most of these scenes Nero is not only revels in this violence, but is (sexually?) excited by the cruelty of it. It's noticeable that Poppea (Elena Sangron who also starred in Rome-related Fabiola (1918) and 1925's Maciste in Hell) is not infrequently disturbed by the violence that her husband finds so appealing.

Despite Nero being the only character who seems to enjoy these scenes of torture and violence, and the fact that the film's cartoonish villainization of him takes tings to an extreme, there is still something a bit nasty lurking under the surface of these moments and the way the camera dwells on them.

Overall

I've dwelt on the fascist issues related to this film mainly because the time and place of its release seem pertinent, but cinematically this doesn't deserve to be remembered purely as a film that "flopped disastrously",(8) after it was deemed a "critical failure" and was "poorly received by both critics and the general public".(9) 

I've already mentioned the sets and the costumes, and the lighting, but the colour tinting is nicely used as well (with the exception of the fire scenes where it tends to suffer from low contrast making the scenes fuzzy. It is a little long, one or two subplots over complicate things, but some of the editing in individual sequences is quite impressive. Indeed, the editing is a significant part of the reason why the violent moments are so shocking, particularly the sequences with the lions and the eels. Perhaps Elley says it better in five words than I have in two thousand: "all spectacle and no content".(10) 

====================

1 - Reich, Jacqueline (2013) "Italian Cinema in the 1920s" in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) Italian Silent Cinema (John Libby) p.137.
2 - Scipione l'Africano (1937), set almost 300 years earlier, ended that barren run, in one of the most pro-Fascist films of Mussolini's reign.
3 - Reich, p.137.
4 - Wyke, Maria (1997) Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History. Routledge, p.128
5 - Hay, James (1987) Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy: The Passing of the Rex. Indiana University Press, p.152.
6 - Sontag, Susan (1975) "Fascinating Fascism", New York Review of Books, Feb. 6. Available online – https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/33d/33dTexts/SontagFascinFascism75.htm
7 - This said, the terror here is mitigated somewhat by Lillian Hall-Davis being replaced by an unconvincing dummy being tied to the back of the bull instead.
8 - Elley, Derek (1984) The Epic Film: Myth and History (Routledge and Keegan Paul), p.20.
9 - Wyke p.130
10 - Elley, p.20

House of David (2026) s2e03

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). There are some major spoilers in what follows even though most are 2500 years old.

I'm running short for time, and don't have much to say for this one, but I'll start with a plot overview and see what follows from there.

Plot

Eshbaal is tortured by the Philistines, almost to the point of submission, but resists. He then appears before Saul and tells him he killed his captors to get free. Eshbaal also confesses that he was crowned and says he is willing to marry Dina, whom he slept with previously, leading to his banishment. Mychal comes to see David and they talk about "the story of Joseph" (Gen 50:19-20 quoted). Avner tells Saul Samuel is free. David asks Saul to let him marry Mychal (in vain). Mychal and Merab discuss who should be David's wife. David learning to fight meets Uriah. Training montage! Saul tells Ahinoam he knows about her crowning Eshbaal. Saul sends off Eshbaal with Jonathan and David to negotiate Eshbaal's marriage. Ahinoam sends away Besal, her seer. Doeg is tormented by dark visions. Saul explains to Mychal why it's best Merab marries David, and that it was her idea. Eliab's refusal to be supportive of David catches the Eshbaal's attention. Yahir, the leader of Dan, asks David to hunt with him. Eshbaal attempts to wed Yahir's daughter Dina who he supposedly seduced in series 1. Avner has Besal killed. Mychal has testy exchanges with Merab and Ahinoam. While Jonathan praises David's conviction, Saul chides Ahinoam for making decrees without him. David's party get ambushed killing Dan's leader. David asks for time before his wedding. Eshbaal proposes to Dina while Jonathan is falling for Sara. Adriel tells Saul it was David who was anointed by Samuel.

Eshbaal

This is quite an episode for Eshbaal. It opens with him (rather than one of his sisters) doing the voiceover for the opening montage, a montage in which he also stars. We see his torture, and it looks like he will succumb, but then he rallies and manages to attack his captors. We last see him in this montage holding a knife to the Philistine king's throat. He later claims to Saul that he killed his captors, but this is not actually shown. It may be true, but typically when TV shows leave such a door open, it's because they are going to walk through it a little later. We will see.

Eshbaal also reconsiders his relationship with Dina, daughter of Yahir, the leader of the tribe of Dan, and offers to marry her. She initially is not at all tempted by the idea, blaming him for disgracing her, but gradually a different side to the story, and to Eshbaal himself, emerges. Eshbaal does seem genuinely taken with Dina and he manages to either convince her of this, or at least charm her to a sufficient degree that she eventually confesses he didn't sleep with her.

From a dramatic point of view Eshbaal is a real gift to the script writers. On the one hand from re-constructing the purported history behind the biblical stories he would have been a very significant character: the son of Saul, and the only one to survive the Battle at Mount Gilboa (1 Sam 31).

But on the other hand, he's shrouded in mystery. Not only is there the ever-changing nature of his name (he's called Eshbaal or Ishbaal or Ishboseth at different points in the original texts), and the fact that he's not even mentioned in the first list of Saul's sons in 1 Sam 14:49, but also the fact he's barely mentioned until he appears being crowned by Abner/Avner in 2 Sam 2. It's possible he was much younger than Jonathan, Abinadab/Ishvi and Malchishua, or that he was a separate character who somehow got drafted into the Saul chronology (he's not crowned king in Chronicles, everyone just supports David as soon as Saul is killed).

Anyway, this leaves the writers a blank canvas which the writers of House of David have used to provide a bit more social interest to keep the dramatic flow of the series a bit more intact. And here they put it to good use. Eshbaal is very relatable, and both kind and realistic in his words to Dina. Dina agrees to marry him, on condition she doesn't bear him an heir or have to pretend to love him. At the end of the show he tells her he finds her "intriguing" she reveals that they never slept together, her father just assumed that they did (Eshbaal had passed out drunk).

Other stuff

Just a couple of points here. Firstly Mychal and David meet early in this episode and David reads to her from the written text of Genesis. Recognising what he is reading Mychal joins in and finishes his words from memory. This is sort of interesting from a few angles. Firstly, many scholars think that the text of Genesis was not in final form by this point. Of course, it could be that they have the J source in front of them (though even that would be pushing the timings), but that seems unlikely. Secondly the idea that Mychal would be reciting it also feels rather unlikely. This is something borrowed from The Chosen as an apologetics-driven way of promoting the reliability of the Bible and it feels even more out of place here, than there.

Lastly Queen Ahinoam (as pictured above in a conversation with Saul) gets a line that sounds rather portentous: "One day you will know what it's like to make terrible decisions in order to save the ones you love". She says this to (I think) Mychal, so it's not a nod towards something in the Bible, I don't think, unless it's to do with 1 Sam 19:11-17, where she puts an idol in the bed when Saul is trying to  kill David. But perhaps it just relates to another invented subplot inserted to keep the drama flowing. 

Ecoadaptation: Mediating Nature and the Environment

Ecoadaptation:
Mediating Nature and the Environment
Edited by Pamela Demory

Palgrave MacMillan
297 pages - Hardback
ISBN 978-3032098467
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007
/978-3-032-09847-4
Publication Date: 21/04/2026

I've just had a chapter published in this book Ecoadaptation: Mediating Nature and the Environment. It was a great privilege to be included in this book – my first time under the umbrella of adaptation studies – alongside some really great scholars. The book is part of the Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture (PSADVC) series. Having started my career in environmental consultancy, it was nice to see my academic work returning to a field that has always been important to me.

My chapter is called "The Ark of the Moral Universe: Recycling Genesis Toward Environmental Justice". In it I look at adaptations of the flood story, going back beyond Noah to the Sumerian flood myths of the third millennium BCE. Those of you who are regular readers might recall I ran a series on Noah adaptations back in 2024. This is the culmination of that. 

The book is available in both hardback and electronic versions now, with a paperback version due next year. I've listed the contents and the scholars names below and it will be available from all the usual places.

For the time being I am not planning to write any more chapters for edited collections, but to focus instead on my next book (though, I'm open to offers!). The last few of these I've done, my first draft has been several times the word limit and then I hate the process of cutting it down by so much. 

Anyway, congratulations to everyone involved and a special thank you to our editor Pamela Demory who was incredibly helpful and insightful with my contribution. I'm really grateful for her patience, expertise and generosity.

Contents

1 What is Ecoadaptation? And Why Should We Care?
Pamela Demory

Part I — The Nature of (Eco)Adaptation

2 Is Adaptation Natural? Ecocritical Repercussions of Conceptualizing Adaptation as Memetic Evolution and/or as (Re)Iterations in the Signifying Chain
Robert Geal

3 A History of Urgency: Cultural Transformations and Ecological Reflections in Czech Environmental Documentaries
Petr Bubeníˇcek and Tereza Dˇedinová

4 The Gloom in the Attic: Fungal Networks as Ecofeminist Adaptation Studies
Cat Champney and Juliana Jones-Beaton

Part II — Adaptation in the Age of Climate Change

5 Geo-Echolocating and Bio-Boomeranging: Rayco Pulido Rodríguez’s Nela as Ecoadaptation of Galdos’ Marianela
Christopher R. Carter

6 “I Can Hear the Glaciers Melting”: Tom Stoppard’s Radio Drama Darkside and the Exploration of Ecological Ethics via Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon
Thomas Grochowski

7 The Ark of the Moral Universe: Recycling Genesis Toward Environmental Justice
Matthew Page

8 “Posters of the Sea and Land”: Indexing Environmental Change in Alexander Abela’s Ecological Adaptation of Macbeth
Allen H. Redmon

Part III — Indigenous Nature and Culture

9 Indigo’s Challenge to The Tempest: Explorations in Ecophenomenology
Elizabeth D. Gruber

10 “A Huge Mass in a Single Hand”: Yellowstone and the Selling of Montana
Katie Kane

11 “This Is Indigenous Land”: Adapting and Protesting Colonialist Discourses through Graffiti in Forte Dos Reis Magos, Brazil
Augustto Correa Cipriani and Clara Matheus Nogueira

Part IV — The Nature of Genre Adaptation

12 The Dead Don’t Die and Zombies Don’t Run: Adapting the Zombie Apocalypse to Slow Cinema
Agnieszka Rasmus

13 Settler Ecologies and Western Adaptation: Unfitting Characters in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Susan Kollin

14 Against Nature? Queering the Romcom
Thomas Leitch

Part V — Adapting Nature

15 Biocinemimicry in The Birds
Christina Parker-Flynn

16 Material Worlds: Seventeenth-Century Vanitas Still Life and Contemporary Environmental Art
Kim Waale

17 The Nature of Experience and the Experience of Nature in Proteus: Artifact Edition

John Sanders

House of David (2026) s2e02

This post is part of a series looking at Amazon Prime's show House of David (2025). There are some major spoilers in in what follows even though most are 2500 years old.

I'm going to work with a different format this series, and generally go into a little less detail than I did with series 1 – I'm trying to be more effective in my use of time. Let's see how that goes...

Plot

Opening flash forward of a confrontation between Saul and David, before the action goes back to the procession celebrating their victory over the Philistines (a year earlier). Eshbaal is welcomed home. Avner confronts Samuel in his cell. Jonathan is "self-medicating" his battle wound before heads to the hills to recover. Daganor and Achish (remaining Philistine kings) arguing about whether they lost because they used bronze not iron. David returns home but when his new army sub-orderlies arrive Eliab refuses to submit to David and fights him. Sara removes Jonathan's arrowhead. Queen Ahinoam appeals to Samuel asking him to endorse Saul again. Merab meets with Saul and expresses her disappointment she is no longer lined up to marry. Doeg sent to torture Samuel but the prophet reveals intimate details about Doeg's past. Ahinoam suggest Saul to make David earn his preferred bride. Avner shows Saul a cowering prophet and explains that Samuel is liberated. David leaves for Jerusalem. Merib suggests a plan to Saul. Avner smuggles Goliath's sword to safety in Nob. Eshbaal brings Jonathan home (leaving Sara behind). David's return is blighted by the new that he is to marry Mirab's not Mychaal.

In contrast to the opening episode of this season, which was essentially just one long battle scene, this episode contains much, much more plot. It's a typical format for a show entering its second season to layout all the initial threads that the series will draw out and knit together as we go. And of course, those who are familiar enough with the texts can see where most of these stories are going. 

Relationships

David's relationships with Saul (the aggressor), Jonathan (the best friend) and Mychaal (the lover) are all picked up again. It's particularly interesting to see that the series looks to be delving into David's turbulent relationship with Mychaal. She isn't very well developed in the texts, but the few verses that are there in the text about Mychaal give plenty for screenwriters to work around. And the roles of Merab and Saul's queen, Ahinoam are also being developed nicely, though we know even less about them from the texts.

The Celebration

Processions are, I suppose, one of the regular markers in epic films, particularly Roman-Christian epics where the plot tends to involve the birth of Christianity coming out in opposition to Rome. The height of the Roman-Christian film was in the 1950s (Quo Vadis, The Robe, Ben-Hur and several others beside). Indeed, many came less than a decade after the falls of fascist regimes in Germany and Italy, so these processions echoed to a certain extent some of the processions of those regimes. (And Hitler had copied Mussolini who himself had tried to evoke the glories of the Roman Empire).

Here though, we're talking about a Hebrew Bible story and things are a little different. The celebration (from 1 Sam 18:6) is initiated, by the women of Israel, rather than being a top-down affair. (It also comes after a series of battle victories, rather than just one, but that's a minor detail) and it sounds much more relaxed and spontaneous ("singing and dancing... with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they made merry" NRSVUE). This is in sharp contrast to the order, discipline and structure of gleaming uniforms in rigid straight lines standing to attention for hours. I know at which one I'd rather be. 

In terms of David films, though, the procession scene following his slaying of Goliath has been a feature since at least David et Goliath (1910), where (to quote myself) David processes "through the town on a horse. He wears a crown on his head whilst a minion follows at a respectable distance with Goliath's head on a stick." (My review. You can see this film on YouTube).

There's no head on a stick here, but there are is a big speech, which is something that wasn't ideally suited to the silent medium. These do two things. Firstly the speech is by Saul which does just give the impression that the/this celebration(s) is being wrestled away from the women who organised it. But it also nudges proceeding towards that more ordered, patriarchal approach. But then this is Saul the show's antagonist, not David, its humble hero.

That more top down feeling is also reinforced by the absence of the only line of dialogue we do know from the text, where the women (specifically) sing "Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands." (To some schools of thought, this poetic snippet of oral tradition is likely one of the oldest bits of text in the Bible). The use of the word "merry" in the NRSV also suggests alcohol-induced spontaneity in this chant.

Now, in fairness, I suspect that this ditty will appear later in the series – after all, in the text this isn't the account of a single incident but the stylised conglomeration of a series of events into a single story-like narrative – but nevertheless, its omission here does also move things away from spontaneity and towards something more stage-managed.

Lastly, on this. It's very noticeable that some members of the appreciative crowd also holding giant palm tree leaves. This, of course, is a nod towards Jesus' triumphal entry. As with David wearing his mother's Marian blue scarf/shawl/sash this is the show emphasising Jesus' connection with David. (Katie Turner has a little YouTube short on the textile in question). 

Metal Technology

The opening monologue to s2e01 had the narrator (who this time announces herself to be Mychaal) talking about how Goliath's sword "had a strength unmatched" developed by the "masters of the coming new age – the age of iron". This time we get the Philistines themselves discussing their technology. Daganor, a new character, comes to see Achish and tells him that the reason they lost was because he focussed on the power of his giant, rather than relying on the strength of his specially crafted sword.

"We are no longer in the age of bronze. Victory now hinges on the forging of iron." So this is the season's second mention of the transition from bronze to iron – a transition that (historically speaking) does seem to have given a military advantage to the more metallurgically advanced societies. So to put this dialogue in contemporary terms, Daganor thinks that to beat the Israelites they need to invest more in the added advantage of advanced technology. 

Interestingly he also adds that "When you created that sword for Goliath, you didn't fully understand what you had made". This, of course, is the kind of wording that lies at the heart of all dystopian sci-fi from "Frankenstein" onwards. Of course, it's worth pointing out (again) that these are what the show's bad guys are saying. And I suspect that the Philistine's reliance on iron will eventually become hubris and that Israel's dependence on God will eventually win the day. 

That said Jonathan, suffering from an infected piece of arrow lodged in his abdomen is taken into the hills to recover by Sara (another new character). She is also a tech-pioneer, and uses an arrow head removing tool that she has created. It seems oddly specific and is of a very advanced design given that using iron for anything is at the cutting edge of science (though the material it's made of is not mentioned).

Closing thoughts

There's plenty of good stuff here. Mychal's opening narrative deliciously lays out the arc for her character. She's looking back having loved David, but eventually come to see him as a man who usurped her father. But the show's going to take its time to get there. The use of the flash forward at the very beginning (in an episode that in several ways feels more like the first episode than the second) suggests that this will be where we return to by the end of the season (having not go close to it in this episode). It's still a long way from the point where Mychal might feel betrayed by David, this season is going to be about how she feels betrayed by her father.

Пустыня (The Wilderness, 1991)

A friend I know only as Shota, messaged me a while back hoping I could help them identify a European Jesus film they had seen. I couldn't, but thankfully they eventually tracked it down and were kind enough to let me know the details. They also found it on YouTube and were kind enough to provide English subtitles.

The film is called Пустыня (1991), which anglicises as Pustynya. Shota translated this as  The Desert while the IMDb page gives lists English title as The Wilderness. It was made in Odessa in 1991, then still part of the Soviet Union (just), but now part of Ukraine. To make the language situation more complicated for native English speakers, the language the actors are speaking is Aramaic, but then a man speaks in Russian translating most of what is said. 

In that way it's a little like the Lumo project only this is not by any means a word for word adaptation of one of the Gospels. Instead the film is based on two novellas by Leonid Andreyev, predominantly "Judas Iscariot" (of which there is a free translation of here), but also "Lazarus". It'll be interesting to have a look at those and see how they compare to this melded adaptation. The film has a very jumbled, non-linear storyline and it would be interestingly to see if that's a feature of the novellas, or a creative decision by director Mikhail Kats (who also wrote the screenplay).

Art film touches and the non-linear storyline

The non-linear storyline is not the only way this film eschews established Hollywood conventions. Most obviously is the way it frequently switches between colour and black-and-white, and back again. It adopts a very particular style which feels quite at home in the art films of the early late 80s/early 90s.

It generally feels quite low budget (except for the scene in Herod's palace). There are disjointed passages, a nonlinear storyline, nudity, modern music. It's quite shouty, with a screaming over-earnestness at certain points. It uses visceral imagery, for example a close-up of meat being sliced open, for example, reminiscent of certain scenes in Last Temptation of Christ. 

For anyone that was alive at the time, and watching film and TV, that style is familiar. At the same time, however, it's very unusual for a Bible film to pitch itself that way, though far from unique. There are elements of it that feel a little bit like Amos Gitai's work notably his 1986 film Esther (particularly the colour scenes within Herod's courtroom) and Golem, l'esprit de l'exil (Golem, the Spirit of Exile, 1992). There are also scenes that feel a bit like Derek Jarman's The Garden (1990), in terms of that slightly experimental, nonlinear, avant-garde sense of things. Perhaps it's somewhere between those three films — there is a narrative, but it's much more disjointed than Esther, but much more coherent than The Garden. Another film that came to mind watching this was Su Re, the Sardinian film, which is from much later (2016), but the jumbled timeline and at least the sense that certain scenes are repeated only played slightly differently when they occur again (I've not managed a second viewing). All of which makes for quite interesting watching, and its quite fresh way to approach the Jesus story.

The film starts in a remarkably bold fashion. Before the action even starts, as the credits roll, we hear a screaming voice. The image gradually comes into focus and we realise what we've been watching is an image of Jesus healing a man who was blind with mud, shown from the point of view of the man himself. This way of introducing Jesus is something Cecil B. DeMille did in The King of Kings (1927), but here it adds the element of the healing using mud, and the tone of this film: in addition to the scream, we witness to the muddy hands on Jesus, they pull away, and then we quickly get the reverse shot that shows the muddy face of the man himself. It's  quite a good strong image with which to start the film. 

Some extreme distance shots follow, where it's hard to be sure what, exactly, is going on. But then suddenly, we're then shown Judas being pulled down from a tree having hung himself. The moment in time has jumped. There's very much a sense of before or after, different narratives overlapping in a nonlinear way, making difficult for the audience to really piece together how all this works.

One of the timescales in view here is the disciple John, who seems to be reliving it. In this production John is not only the disciple, but also the writer of Revelation, and there's a reference to the sixth seal (Rev 6:12-17). It also seems that he is blind. The film then cuts back to the trial, where we get a particularly bad depiction of Caiaphas in terms of antisemitic stereotypes: he's got a hooked nose, a long, scruffy beard and hair, there's a lot of showy, but tacky-seeming jewellery / regalia that situates him among scores of very bad Jewish stereotypes.

At the same time as the trial is happening, we get what seems to be both Peter and/or Judas in the courtyard outside, Peter warming his hands, and occasionally denying he knows Jesus. And these scenes contrast with the moment we've already seen where the disciples recall Jesus saying to Judas "What you must do, do quickly", and calling Judas "traitor" and "filth". Incidentally, Jesus (pictured below) is often referred to as "Rabbi" during the film. He's also called Yeshua throughout this film and a couple of times called Yeshua HaNotzri. 

Language and biblical quotes

Another one of these 90s art-film elements is, of course, the way it uses language. The film mixes up biblical quotations and everyday language in quite an interesting fashion. Some lines feel very much rooted in the here-and-now. There's discussion of a broken gate "For a year now I can't get new bolts" mixed in with direct quotes from Jesus, usually presented out-of-context and quite esoterically. Often they appear in the lips of others who are quoting Jesus. In contrast to the every day language such as the above the quotes from the Gospels have quite traditional, recognisable, phrasing but they emerge in very unfamiliar settings, and very often quite isolated. That and the unfamiliar formal elements makes Пустыня feel like the work of someone who's a big fan of the Gospel of Thomas or perhaps the theoretical sayings 'gospel' Q.

Here are the ten parts of the script where a quotation was fairly unambiguously from the Gospels (I may have missed some)

• "A tree that bears no good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Matt 7:19)(Thm.43c) 
• "Whoever saves his life will lose it." (Mark 8:35)
• "Many are called, few are chosen." (Matt 22:14)(Thm.75)
• "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matt 7:1-2)(Q)
• "Sooner shall heaven and earth cease to exist than a single stroke of the law given by my Father shall pass away" (Matt 5:18)(Q)
• "He who has ears, let him hear" (Mark 4:9)(Thm.96)
• "Do you not know that not a single hair can fall from one's head without the will of Him who sent me" (Mash-up of Matt 10:29-10; Luke 12:7; Luke 21:18)
• Mention of paying taxes to Caesar (Mark 12:13-17)(Thm.100)
• If you have faith even as a mustard seed, you could move mountains" (Matt 17:20)(Q)
• "The servant is not greater than his master" (John 13:16)
• "Whoever wishes to be first among all, must be a servant of all." (Mark 9:35)

In terms of the citations above (first bracket), where a quotation appears in more than one canonical gospel I've cited the one that is generally considered the earliest. All of the quotations are from the canonical gospels. However, in the second bracket I've marked whether the saying also appears in the Gospel of Thomas. Where the earliest citation is Matthew, but also appears in Luke I've indicated this by using the letter Q. This will probably annoy my fellow Q-sceptics, because this material should just be called the double-tradition material, but my reasoning is that this rather esoteric presentation of Jesus' words – plucked out of context, given an other-worldly feel, and not really presented in conventional life-of-Christ fashion – do feel more in line with Q than with the idea of Luke copying Matthew. (Besides, it doesn't have to have existed for writer/director Mikhail Kats to have believed in it.)

Other disciples

Part of the reason this feels a little more esoteric is because Jesus is not really on screen that much. He pops up in the occasional scene, and occasionally says or does something we recognise from the Gospels, but this is much more of a film about Judas, as might be expected given Andreyev's source material.

In contrast several of the other disciples are also more fully developed, and not just Peter and John as mentioned above. For example, we get introduced to Levi, and this name is used instead of "Matthew". As someone who is, himself, called Matthew, this grabs my attention. The Gospels never make this connection between Levi and Matthew explicitly. Mark and Luke name "Matthew" as one of the twelve, and tell a separate story of a converting tax collector called "Levi" without connecting them. Matthew's Gospel, however, changes the name of this tax collector to Matthew, so there is no Levi in his text. Given a number of more fluid name changes in the Gospels and the Bible more broadly it's very reasonable to assume this is another case. Yet Jesus films usually just go with Matthew presumably because he also holds interest as the Gospel writer. That said there is some dialogue in Jesus of Nazareth where Matthew introduces himself as, "Matthew... or Levi, I'm known by both names" and Peter fires back "and others". 

The role of Thomas is also significantly expanded. He first appears being carried into a scene by the disciples, who retrieve his battered body from a village in which he has been attacked. Initially, they say they killed him, but he is actually still alive, a broken, bloody, beaten body. The implication is that the attack took place while he was preaching in said village. The disciples describe how his eyes have been gouged and he was stoned.

Towards the end of the film both Levi and a restored Thomas both become more dominant and seem to have more power than Peter or John (who remains blind throughout). It's also not until the end of the film that we see any of Jesus' women followers. 

Herod and Salomé

We also encounter John the Baptist, and indeed there is quite a bit of talk about him when he is not on screen. There is quite a bit of detail about the events leading up to his death, and the scene of his execution at Herod's banquet is particularly long (particularly given the length of most of the other scenes in the film). It's also nearly all in colour, save a few shots of the corridors and minor rooms of the palace.

Herod, Herodias and her daughter (who is named as Salomé) are all there, but we get introduced to another character who is referred to, fairly consistently as Hegemon/hegemon. I don't know whether this is a name, but I suspect it's just a designation (as in "hegemon" someone from the ruling group) for Pilate. In contrast to a lot of other portrayals of Pilate here seems queer-coded, which is how many Jesus films have portrayed Herod. Certainly as also called Procurator a few times. He is also the one pushing Judas to betray Jesus.

Salomé's dance is one of the more erotically charged portrayals. We only ever really see from the waist down, with occasional full length shots, but it's difficult to really identify her as a figure until John the Baptist is brought and we actually see her face. In addition to Salomé's dance, the banquet is also served by naked waitresses, which adds to the unusual atmosphere in that place (as does the slap bass track accompanying it).

Eventually, we get the procession that brings John the Baptist's head to the table for Herod to show Salomé and, as with Jesus, Nuestro Senor (1971), we see John's severed head open its eyes. Unsurprisingly, this terrifies Salomé and she runs off. Herod however continues to look at John's severed head and hears John's voice.

Hebrew Bible Fabrication

John's voice returns fairly shortly after to haunt Herod. There's a fantastic extra-high shot of  Herod standing on the top of his palace, on top of high, rocky outcrop. As he looks out  John's words ring in his ears, which I'll quote in full here:

Listen to me.

The walls of your fortress shall crumble.

Dust from Parthian hooves shall cover your cities like a shroud.

The enemy shall brand your body with tempered iron.

Hungry dogs will lick your wounds on the last night of your death agony.

Such is the prophecy of the Lord God.

And then your pride shall scatter to dust.

When your name becomes merely a symbol of lawlessness,

I shall be glorified with your name.

I shall be glorified by generations to come, by elders and children.

Such is the prophecy of the Lord God.

What I find interesting about this is that to the casual listener, it sounds like it's a direct quotation from one of the prophets from the Hebrew Bible. No such passage exists. Indeed, it's cleverer than that because each line has 3 or 4 echoes from the Hebrew Bible, but it never really copies a specific line directly . I've combined all the echoes (A)I found into one giant Bible Gateway link. These combined together have the feel of quite late Hebrew Bible language / early apocalyptic sentiments which seems, broadly speaking, roughly in line with the little we know of John's message.

Part Two

Just before the hour mark an intertitle announces part two, though neither the disjointed narrative or the combination of two sources into one really give any clue as to why this is. Nevertheless, we reach of scene where the temple authorities have gathered and start to talk about Jesus and what he has been saying and doing. The story of the Samaritan woman at the well is recounted, while someone else mentions Jesus' evasive answer regarding paying taxes to Caesar. Then there are also mentions of his parables and miracles, notably his raising of Lazarus, and discussion about the clearing of the temple. All in all, this is one of the most informed sets of the temple authorities I've seen in a Jesus film. Finally one of the assembled delivers the line "Better that one-man perish than the whole nation."

The  authorities, aside from Caiaphas' ornate costume mentioned above, all have the classic tea towel and headband costumes style costumes. I imagine this is probably for budgetary reasons, it does really emphasise the very low-budget feel of this production (Herod's palace aside), while it also adding to its strangeness. And its worth stressing that while the budget might feel low, some of the cinematography is absolutely superb. The screengrab below (of John in front of the authorities) doesn't really capture the beauty of the shot (it's more the shot as a whole than one frame).

The debate between the authorities is paired with a similarly heated debate among the disciples among which of them is the greatest, but by the time we have joined it, this once theological discussion has descended into a macho competition to see who can chuck rocks the furthest off the edge of a cliff. This particularly inappropriate method of determining which of them will be first in the Kingdom of Heaven really highlights their pettiness in a way few films really tackle. 

Of course, eventually one of the disciples takes news of the argument back to Jesus, and returns to tell his confused colleagues that "he said that a servant is not greater than his master, and that whoever wishes to be first among all, must be a servant of all." (John 13:16 & Mark 9:35)

Death of Jesus?

We then cut to the flagellation scene, which is taking place inside somewhere with Jesus, already tied/chained in a cross position. It's here Jesus is referred to as Yeshua HaNotzri. We also get Judas referred to as "the son of Kerioth" (which is one possible meaning for "Iscariot"), and John as the son of Zebedee when it turns out that they are the witnesses for Jesus's trial. 

While Jesus' trial is happening, a large, raucous, Jewish crowd arrives carrying fire torches and chanting "Hit him! Crush him!". This is rather problematic, given the history of antisemitism, not least the way that Judas is also hounded by them. Indeed, then the film jumps back to a similar moment that turns out not to be to do with the trial. Instead Judas is being chased and comes to the disciples, and then to Jesus, to escape. Jesus faces up to the crowd, and then we see his heart bleeding.

There are a couple of quotations here from Isaiah (42:1 & 52:13) including part of the "suffering servant" passage: "Behold my servant, exalted and lifted up". and "Judas causing a money-loving fraud." There's a beautiful shot of John at 91 minutes (above) as he gives his testimony, and then a brief change between colour and black and white, as a battered Jesus is brought into the trial room. But it's only when John hears that a second testimony will be given by Judas that he starts screaming. He thought he was doing what Jesus asked him but now realises the predicament he is in. 

Hegemon/Pilate washes his hands, we get what looks like a reaction shot (close-up) of Jesus and then more words from Isaiah's suffering servant passage (Is53:4-5). And suddenly there's a flashback and we're back with the disciples and Jesus speaking aphorisms that are not from any of the ancient texts, such as "You pick a stalk of grain and crush it to make bread. Are you not killing? And when you pick the vine and press the juice from its berries — is that not killing?"

And this is more or less the last we see of Jesus. There follows much argument between the disciples and the flashbacks between John in Jesus' day and an older John continue and intensify. Eventually we see the older John feeling, embracing and then kneeling before a slightly less than life-sized sculpture of Jesus. And it's this that is as close as we ever get to seeing the death of Jesus. We see him battered at his trial and this memorial of his crucifixion, but it's unclear whether the event itself ever actually happened and whether that's because the creative team were aiming for a more artistic interpretation or more historically ambiguous one.

The scene after this shows a young man drop into a room carved into the stone containing empty tomb paraphernalia, such as a draped white sheet, flames, carved figures, beams of light and a simple memorial cross, and he then reads from a scroll "In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God." And then there's another cut and a montage of people pacing thoughtfully, gradually coming together to form some kind of procession.

In the last six minutes there's a change in tone, almost without a clear end point. There's this silent procession. We get the operatic sounds of the Hebrew song "Él Málé Ráchámim-Gyászének", and t then the film's final image is of a candlelit boat floating on the water, away from the camera.

Final thoughts

Пустыня is a really interesting film because it takes a very different approach to the story. The disjointedness of it is particularly interesting, given that this is actually how people quite often experience the stories about and sayings of Jesus. Most people don't usually read them all the way through, even those of us who do that occasionally. 

With Jesus films, however, we tend to watch them all the way through and follow their conventional narrative (with some exceptions). But here, the Jesus material is a bit here, a bit there, and jumbled up, as they are, perhaps, bits of the Bible are read in church. So this film's approach is quite an interesting way of doing it.

It also means it puts the viewer a bit more on edge. The storyline is no longer familiar. You're not quite sure what is happening, what's going to happen next, whereabouts in the story you are, what is being portrayed. It's much harder to get a sense of it, and you have that disorientation that one could perhaps argue was felt by Jesus' first followers. 

So it's beautiful and strange, and certainly worth checking out for those who are interested in approaching the Gospels from a different perspective or for that matter those who are interested in late soviet era filmmaking.