![\"\"](\"https:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/1600\/son-of-man-2.jpg\")
<\/a>The Sundance Film Festival<\/a> in Park City, Utah has a page up for Son of Man<\/a><\/i>, the modernized South African adaptation of the gospels that will be screened there four times between this coming Sunday and the Sunday after.<\/span><\/p>\nThe blurb states, among other things:<\/p>\n
Shot against the backdrop of a violence-riddled township and with text updated to modern time, Son of Man<\/i> delivers one indelible impression after another. Mary conceives the Christ child during a militia attack on a grade school, Jesus asks for the surrender of handguns from his apostles, and the angel Gabriel is a precocious child marked with simple white feathers. Equally intriguing is the melding of the crucifixion and resurrection\u2013alluding to the fact that in today\u2019s Africa, political dissidents, as Jesus was, are conveniently made to disappear. In song and originality, the spirit of Son of Man<\/i> is contagious, a life-enriching elixir for Christians and non-Christians alike who feel mired in the unyielding bigotry of fundamentalism. By modernizing one of the world\u2019s most famous stories, Son of Man<\/i> creates lasting resonance and imparts a significance that is truly glorious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Reuters<\/a> also has a story on the film:<\/p>\n
Billed as the world\u2019s first black Jesus movie, \u201cSon of Man\u201d portrays Christ as a modern African revolutionary and aims to shatter the Western image of a placid savior with fair hair and blue eyes.<\/p>\n
The South African film, which premieres on Sunday at the U.S. Sundance festival in Utah, transports the life and death of Christ from first century Palestine to a contemporary African state racked by war and poverty.<\/p>\n
Jesus is born in a shanty-town shed, a far cry from a manger in a Bethlehem stable. His mother Mary is a virgin, though feisty enough to argue with the angels. Gun-wielding authorities fear his message of equality and he ends up hanging on a cross. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to look at the gospels as if they were written by spindoctors and to strip that away and look at the truth,\u201d director Mark Dornford-May told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that Christ was born in an occupied state and preached equality at a time when that wasn\u2019t very acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
By portraying Jesus as a black African, Dornford-May hopes to sharpen the political context of the gospels, when Israel was under Roman occupation, and challenge Western perceptions of Christ as meek, mild and European.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to accept that Christ has been hijacked a bit \u2014 he\u2019s gone very blonde haired and blue-eyed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe important thing about the message of Christ was that it is universal. It doesn\u2019t matter what he looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, there was a film called \u201cBlack Jesus\u201d made in 1968 and starring Woody Strode, but it is described as a political commentary rather than an interpretation of the life of Christ.<\/p>\n
RESURRECTION HOPE<\/p>\n
Made by the same theater company behind last year\u2019s award-winning \u201cU-Carmen eKhayelitsha,\u201d Son of Man is in the tongue-clicking Xhosa African language and English and was filmed in the sprawling black townships near Cape Town.<\/p>\n
Jesus begins his public ministry after an encounter with Satan \u2014 who appears cloaked in black leather \u2014 during his traditional Xhosa circumcision rite.<\/p>\n
He gathers followers from the factions of armed rebels across the country and demands they lay down their guns and confront their corrupt rulers with a vision of non-violent protest and solidarity.<\/p>\n
Dornford-May, who says he subscribes to Christ\u2019s teachings without necessarily believing he is the son of God, says the Jesus in the film is a divine being who rises from the dead.<\/p>\n
His resurrection is meant to signal hope for Africa, the world\u2019s poorest continent which is sometimes dismissed by foreigners as a hopeless mess of conflict and corruption.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ending is optimistic but realistic. There is an incredible struggle to get to the optimism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dornford-May says focus groups of church leaders and ordinary Christians in South Africa, where Christianity often comes in a conservative form, broadly praised the film, which he hopes will prove a hit on the continent and worldwide.<\/p>\n
Mary, played by the star of U-Carmen, Pauline Malefane, gets a beefed-up role as the inspiration for Christ\u2019s politics and humanity, compared to her fairly brief biblical appearances.<\/p>\n
And Malefane, who is married to Dorford-May, makes a smooth transition from playing the seductive heroine Carmen to the world\u2019s most famous virgin, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are both women who are prepared to stand outside of society. They may be different sides of the coin but they are still the same coin \u2014 but I\u2019m not going to be very popular for saying that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Needless to say, I\u2019m eager to see this one.<\/p>\n
JAN 24 UPDATE: Thanks to Mark Goodacre<\/a> for linking to the film\u2019s official website<\/a>, which includes a PDF press kit and lotsa stills.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah has a page up for Son of Man, the modernized South African adaptation of the gospels that will be screened there four times between this coming Sunday and the Sunday after. The blurb states, among other things: Shot against the backdrop of a violence-riddled township and with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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