So thankfully after a very long and busy week I am finished with school for the 2014 year, and I only have three terms remaining for my masters program! It is such a relief to not have to worry about school while also working for the time being, and hopefully work begins to slow down as well. People have been extraordinarily mentally ill lately for some odd reason, I think it is because of the fluctuations in temperature, but my co-workers believe it is the holidays which are making the people a little more crazier than usual. It's hard to believe there are only approximately 15 days left of 2014; how time flies, regardless if it is pleasurable or not. So today I went to see the new film Exodus: Gods and Kings which is the new adaptation of the Moses story from the Hebrew historical book of Exodus. Several film adaptations of the account have been done, but none so famously as Charleston Heston in The Ten Commandments as the lead character Moses, and Yul Brenner as Ramses. This adaptation starred Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses, both of which delivered excellent performances. Now according to what I heard about how Ridley Scott wanted to design the film, he wanted to take the miraculous out of equation and instead take a more rational approach. Like traditional Ridley Scott, he was able to capture the period perfectly, and have relatively good epic action, though I still think that Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven are amongst his finest work. The cinematography was exquisite, the costume design sumptuous, and the music by Albert Iglesias was actually pretty good, and although I love choral music, I think that Latin should not have been utilized. I was even impressed by the usage of 3-D in the film; Mr. Scott used it very well, although still not to the degree that he could have. So Christian Bale as Moses, who would have ever thought, and I thought it was going to be a dreadful decision, but it actually worked fairly successfully; he gave Moses a more real look and feel rather than something overly Puritan and fantastic. The same thing goes for Joel Edgerton as Ramses, although so much of him was heavily westernized unfortunately, but that went for most of the film as well. The supporting cast like Ben Kingsley, John Turturro, and Sigourney Weaver did very well. My main complaints were rather academic. First of all, the film was heavenly westernized in terms of values, morals, perspectives, and cultural norms which was rather aggravating. This came in terms of the relationship between Moses and Ramses, Moses and his wife, Moses and his son, and the role of religion and spirituality during that era. Perhaps the screenwriters should have read Joseph Campbell's work on mythology. Another problem I had with the film were the historical inaccuracies regarding the account of Moses, particularly with what is in the book of Exodus. Lastly, how God was represented was kind of odd; He was manifested as a young boy and spoke with Moses as if the two were on the same level, and Moses showed no reverence towards Him. I forgot to mention the screenwriting which was okay, but not great and it could have been far better. What the film did was make the account of Moses much more realistic and something that you could relate humanly to; that he did very well. With the exception of a few moments, I enjoyed the film; the plagues were done well, although he skipped the fire and brimstone one. If you like epic films, or the historical genre of film as I do then you will like it. I tip my hat to Herr Director Scott, but I still wish he would make a film about the rise of Babylon.Exodus: Gods and Kings
Ridley Scott interview
Inside Out trailer (this looks really good).
