Posted on 12/01/2006 5:42:28 AM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
Are you ready for “The Passion of the Christ: The Prequel”?
The self-explanatory “The Nativity Story” arrives at local theaters in time for the holidays, and it’s a sweet, live-action version of an elementary-school Christmas pageant.
The big story behind the scenes is that Australian Keisha Castle-Hughes, this film’s Blessed Virgin, is pregnant in real life at age 16, which is the kind of publicity money can’t buy. As Mary, she is young, strong and vulnerable, but her performance is a bit of a blank slate.
The action begins with a paranoid Herod ordering the murder of all Hebrew first-born male children to thwart a prophecy that a king will be born to take his place.
In flashbacks, Mary’s Aunt Elizabeth conceives a child at an advanced age, a child who will become Christ’s forerunner, John the Baptist, and Mary is visited by the semitransparent, wingless angel Gabriel Joseph, the industrious and handsome young carpenter, lives conveniently across the way from Mary.
Meanwhile, back in Persia, the three Magi - Melchior, Balthasar, and Shemp, I mean, Gaspar) - seem more like the THREE STOOGES than WISE MEN. They’re watching three heavenly bodies align and bickering over whether to mount a camel-borne expedition to the East.
The film, directed by Catherine Hardwicke has less in common with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s neorealistic landmark “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” (1964), Martin Scorsese’s controversial “The Last Temptation of Christ” (1988) and Mel Gibson’s gore-splattered “The Passion of the Christ” (2004) than with the blandly earnest Hollywood biblical epics of the 1950s and ’60s. Screenwriter Mike Rich followed the leads provided in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
For her part, Hardwicke - who shot in southern Italy, where both Pasolini and Gibson preceded her - brings a refreshingly enlightened view of women’s roles and details the lives of her biblical characters. Mary’s mother, Anna, for example, makes and sells designer goat cheese, which she rolls in thyme, in the village.
The dialogue is in English and Hebrew and advances the plot, but does not reveal much about characters’ inner selves. The film’s climax relies too heavily on canned, choral music. The first of the expected offspring of “The Passion,” “The Nativity Story” is an after-Sunday-school special.
Rarely do I mix my religious sensibilities with Schadenfreude, but I am very much looking forward to the smash box office take being rubbed in Mr. Verniere's smug puss.
let's hope it is a box-office smash. I tried to take my mother, who has Parkinson's, to the movies over Thanksgiving. The selection was pathetic, but I did find a good movie called "The Queen."
"...mount a camel-borne expedition to the East."
I think the author needs a lesson in Biblical geography. Persia is east of the Holy Land, an expedition to follow the Star would go west.
The author does need lessons, especially in his attitude.
I wonder how Hardwicke gets along in Hollywood and what they think of her. She's to be applauded for making this movie.
I'll bet the Boston Herald said that Narnia would be a flop too. Makes me want to see it even more. I mean if people would pay money to see Inconvenient BS..........
This author probably liked Borat, which I haven't seen, but I've heard about.
...gee, don't you know that Boston is the "East".... and the center of the universe....so by traveling "east" he really means "towards the east coast where Baahhstan is located"....
If the three wise men humped each other and then somehow showed in the film that a "virgin" birth was a sham.... then the reviewer would've loved it.....anything written by a paper north of the Red River is suspect and considered fiction or malicious anti-American propaganda until proved otherwise on the Free Republic...
Did your daughters like it?
a flamer hates a christian movie, what a surprise....NOT!
Ping
A flamer?
I just got off the phone with my wife. We'll be taking the family to see it tonight. Its supposed to blow like stink here on the CT coastline (north of the Red River) tonight, so we'll probably have the theater to ourselves.
Yes they did (Ages 11 and 9). Mrs Arfan and I liked it as well.
And, yes, I would recommend going to see it. It's good to refect on the true meaning of Christmas.
Thank you
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