Monday 18 June 2012

The Jesus story, in black and white

The only film perhaps my grandmother saw in a cinema house was Jesus, in Malayalam. The scene in which Roman soldiers drove nails into the hands of Jesus so disturbed her that she let out an anguished cry, much to the embarrassment of those who accompanied her. I wonder what Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, depicting the final hours of Jesus in all its gory details for a full two hours, would have done to a gentle heart like hers. The movie devotes 10 minutes alone for the flogging of Jesus.
Most of us, like my grandmother, are eager to take the vicarious trip 2,000 years ago to a world that spoke Aramaic (as Jesus spoke), to follow the blue-eyed, long-haired blonde miracle-worker along the shores of Galilee and Nazareth and Jerusalem and Judea as the multitudes did, and to ‘share’ in the passion of the ‘son of man’ on Calvary’s cross. But what does the life and message of the poor carpenter’s son, whose hands were callused with work and whose soul yearned for liberation, mean for us, modern-day believers?
The greatest story ever told
The other day, I chanced upon a DVD titled Son of Man, a South African movie in Xhosa (one of the official languages of South Africa and spoken by approximately 18 per cent of its population) and English, which re-imagines the life of Jesus today and now. It bagged the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States. The 2005 movie brings alive ‘the greatest story ever told’ by making us become a character in it.
The story is set in the fictitious kingdom of Judea in an African country. Dictatorship, coups, ethnic strife, hunger, poverty and child soldiers are part of everyday life here. The country is ravaged by a civil war. A young woman trying to escape armed militants by pretending to be dead amid the corpses of children in a classroom gets the vision of an angel, who tells her that she will bear the son of God. In a striking parallel to the Gospel, the woman gives birth to a child in a cattle-shed when she accompanies her husband for a census.
By the time the Magi come, Jesus is old enough to walk. Now Herod decrees that all male infants in the minority population be killed. They flee the country but some of them are waylaid by soldiers at the border. A disturbing sight in the movie is the massacre of children; hiding in the bushes, the mother turns child Jesus’ eyes towards the scene. As they are about to cross the border the angel appears to Jesus and invites him to heaven. But Jesus chooses to stay back saying, “This is my world.”
Upon reaching adulthood, Jesus leaves home and gathers disciples from among the warring factions. There are women too among his chosen twelve. His religion is non-violence: he convinces all of them to turn in their weapons.
An “interim government” propped up by the occupier force is in power in the country; the local people who form the majority are for a power-sharing agreement with the rulers rather than side with radical groups like that of Jesus who want the occupiers out. Jesus is on the watch-list; his miracles, including that of raising Lazarus to life, is viewed with suspicion but not taken seriously. But Judas, who records all of Jesus’ activities on his movie camera, gives the high priests of war and politics, aptly named Annas and Caiaphas, enough evidence about Jesus’ political ambitions.
The political and social situation of Palestine and its environs during the lifetime of Jesus, which was under Roman occupation, is set in contemporary idiom in the movie. For instance, a ‘sermon’ by Jesus goes like this: “When those with imperial histories pretend to forget them and blame Africa’s problems on tribalism and corruption while building themselves new economic empires, I say we have been lied to. …When I hear someone was beaten and tortured in the Middle East, I say we have been lied to. When I hear that in Asia child labour has been legislated for, I say we have been lied to. When politicians in Europe and USA defend trade subsidies and help to restrict the use of medicine through commercial patents, I say we have been lied to. Evil did not fall.”
Jesus is captured, and Annas and Caiaphas offer him a chance to share power. But they can’t make him submit to their plans.
His torture reminds one of the killing of South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in police custody. Jesus is buried in a secret grave, but a young man in the burial squad lets Mary know of it. She is among a group of people protesting against the occupiers when she hears the news.
She and a few other women dig the body out of the grave. She brings it (in Pieta fashion) sitting on the back of a truck. Mary ties the arms of Jesus to a cross with scarves, and the cross is lifted up for all to see. Death by crucifixion being alien to the African culture, the film is careful to contextualise it in this manner.
A crowd slowly gathers at the foot of the cross, and Mary sings, “The land is covered in darkness.” Chants of unity, freedom and strength rent the air till they reach a crescendo. The movie ends with Jesus walking up a hill followed by a multitude of angels (young children) and pumping his fist hopefully in the air.
“The secret of the movie is that it doesn’t strain to draw parallels with current world events - because it doesn’t have to,” says film critic Roger Ebert.
By portraying Jesus as a black man clad in jeans and shirt, director Mark Dornford-May challenges the general perceptions about Christ. “We wanted to look at the Gospels as if they were written by spin doctors and to strip that away and look at the truth,” he said in an interview. “The truth is that Christ was born in an occupied state and preached equality at a time when that wasn’t very acceptable.”
The 86-minute movie is a refreshing departure from conventional movies about Jesus. Son of Man essentially takes the time machine to show us what the Incarnation could be like if it happened now. It is about the inner struggles and triumphs of a social movement as much as it is of an individual. This is the Jesus story of our time – warts and all.