Why were there so many Christian movies in 2014? In part, we can thank Roma Downey and Mark Burnett of Lightworkers Media for deciding they needed to net some extra revenue from their 2013 History Channel miniseries The Bible, and releasing a cut down version of the four episodes concerning Jesus' life and deeds to theaters in late February. Whether or not the world needed this particular film to kick off the slate of seven to pierce the mainstream radar that year is a worthwhile question - the film leaves out many notable scenes from the Gospels and foregoes the series' narration, leaving behind a story already told free from character moments and unique stances on the Biblical narrative without proper transitions or context for what we're seeing. To the right eye, Son of God is pretty much useless as anything but an extension of the series' DVD sales (and, bizarrely, two redundant literary adaptations). We sat through all two hours and twenty minutes last night, though, so I feel obliged to treat it as a standalone work of adaptation, even bearing in mind the material was not designed to play this way.
On its own merits, Son of God isn't the worst thing in the world. I rather liked some of the little moments scattered about here and there, like introducing Jesus by half-submerging him in water as a means invoking his baptism and foreshadowing the later walking on water, or how Jesus' prayers in Gethsemane are cut against the pharisees and his disciples making their own calls to God. A few of the miracles have the basis of interesting techniques around them, such as Jesus feeding the 5000 by simply encouraging them to lift their baskets to the sky and bringing them down full of bread and fish, or the intense closeups marking Lazarus' resurrection. The guy playing Jesus mostly bases his performance on strong declarative readings of the famous sayings, which at least works well if you're only asking for a cliffnotes version of (most of) his famous deeds. It's not much, I'll confess. Having something nice to say about the film is still a welcome surprise, though.
Looking at the total scope, there's practically nothing here. While I mentioned the lack of important sequences like turning water to wine or the trial before Herod, I doubt this works well as compelling docudrama or fiction on its own merits. Son of God starts at the belief in Jesus' divinity and the importance of his ideals, and so resolves to spend its runtime presenting the necessary beats one after another without much flair. Jesus performs miracles and claims himself God's chosen son, confounds the local authorities with wise sayings beyond their comprehension, and astonishes his disciples most by claiming faith without sight is a grander thing than faith based on proof, in complete and total lockstep with what the Good Book says he did. His rage at the moneylenders in the Temple, his agony in the garden, his pain on the cross, they all come through without the slightest hint of the passion inherent to the story's very name. Jesus does what he does and is miraculous because Jesus does what he does and is miraculous in the Bible, and the movie thinks the tome so holy and worthy of reverence that it only deviates by omission, and never interprets or enhances.
I understand the reticence to do so. I'm no Biblical scholar or Christian - I came up in an agnostic household, my first exposure to the whole religion was a daycare teacher telling me I'd go to hell for not knowing what the Bible is, and that sort of soured me on the whole experiment for a while - but the tenants of the faith are familiar to me. If Jesus' story and the power inherent to him work best when you accept them unquestioningly, then to point to the Holy of Holies and claim something's wrong, that you can do it better, is akin to saying the new covenant between man and God has no power. Personal reinterpretation may be fine, depending on your sect, but in general one should strive to accept and internalize what's on the page, and never put out something defying the Word. If you're going to put the Bible on-screen, the best thing to do is to put it there as literally as possible, and stay out of its way.
Leaving aside the issue of trying to stage such a historical telling while casting actors whose ties to the Israeli homeland are almost nil, I don't think placing the holiness of the text above the personal connection does anyone any favors. Nothing is liable to supersede the original text, and a passionate reinterpretation designed for its time can have profound impact. After years of discounting the Bible and Christianity as institutions with good morals but not much modern value, watching Jesus Christ Superstar and seeing the story of Jesus in such a raw, emotional, humanizing manner on all levels got me interested in the continuing impact and validity of the story and its related tales for the very first time. That movie might scream 70s fashion and deliberately place itself both within and apart from the original setting by filming in on-location ruins, yet it is as alive and vibrant a tale as any I've seen. Judas and Caiaphas and Pilate all serve as barbing questions against the assumption of Jesus' divinity and good nature, and Jesus himself expresses open doubts as to the necessity of his project, only to be met with an abstract, inscrutable answer from God. The entire final half-hour demands an answer for why from Jesus again and again, and is only met with silence, and ultimately the confusion and anguish of the crucifixion.
And still, for all the silence, all the doubt, all the legitimate reasons to think Jesus only brought himself and those around him needless pain, the film ends on a shot of the cross silhouetted against the setting sun, a shepherd tending to his flock in the fields below, captured on film entirely by accident. If you want to distill the idea of believing without seeing, and so finding the Lord wherever you look into a single image, that's how you do it.
Son of God just has Jesus say as much before vanishing in a beam of light, because that's how the book did it, and so that's how we'll do it. It is so afraid to cast Jesus as anything except a man made of quotes and deeds, it robs him of whatever power a more heartfelt, artistic depiction might bring, and so fails as a recruitment tool.
It's a safe, easy, for-the-faithful only film, one which completely fails to understand the faithful need challenging and testing more than the non-believers. I cannot condemn it, for it does nothing condemnable save duplicate without skill or understanding. There exist far better depictions of this tale, far better stories inspired by it, far better shared connections from the heart of a moved believer to your own. Unfortunately, because we're looking at films designed to provoke, proselytize, and exploit those who have faith, we're not looking at many of those this Christmas season. I've got a surprise scheduled at the end to make sure this series is more than endless complaints about those who believe differently than I do expressing their religion wrong, but with what's coming up next on the docket...
Well, at least Son of God intends to preach the Word as it exists on the page.
2.5/5
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