The animated story of The Passion, as narrated by Charles Dickens for his innocent and wide-eyed son Walter and Walter’s mischievous cat, is hitting our screens this week and it promises to be excellent entertainment for this school holiday.
Five-year-old Walter Dickens with boundless energy and his sword in his hand, is obsessed with the story of King Arthur, and the story begins with a Walter, like Peter-Pan, flying across the stage of a theatre into the midst of a performance of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol announcing that he’s the one true king. It’s an unexpected start to a biblical film as it falls to the famous nineteenth-century novelist to explain to his young progeny how Jesus trounces King Arthur in the King of Kings stakes.
“My Dear Children, I am very anxious that you should know something about the History of Jesus Christ. For everybody ought to know about Him. No one ever lived who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all people who did wrong, or were in any way ill or miserable, as He was.“
Directed by Seong-ho Jang for Angel Studios, the film is based on a novel by Charles Dickens The Life of Our Lord which he wrote between 1846 and 1849 exclusively for his own children. A simple account of Jesus’s life and teachings, with an occasional touch of Dickens’s humour, he asked that it never be shared beyond his own family. However, it was later published in 1934, 64 years after his death and only once the last of Dickens’s children had died. This Easter, his words are being shared with a new audience in film format.
Jesus – whose chiselled face doesn’t look dissimilar to the mosaic Jesus outside Ta’ Pinu – is voiced by Guatemalan-born American actor Oscar Isaac. Isaac is perhaps best-known as Poe Dameron, the X-wing fighter pilot in the Star Wars films, introduced in The Force Awakens in 2015. For King of Kings, he has stepped back in time and space, and from a galaxy far far away to give life to the animated son of Christ. Interestingly Mark Hamil aka Luke Skywalker has gone over to the dark side for this film as the voice of King Herod, and with Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate and Ben Kingsley as High Priest Caiaphas it’s an assuredly stellar line-up.
Back in warmly-lit Bethlehem, Nazareth, the streets of Jerusalem and in the Garden of Gethsemane, strolling unseen alongside The Man himself are the Dickens duo (Charles voiced by Kenneth Branagh and little Walter by Roman Griffin Davis). Clad in Victorian costumes, it’s as if Dickens vehicle of using Ghosts in his famous Christmas story has another outing!
Boisterous Walter vividly witnesses the day- to-day life and the miracles of Christ with Charles as a guide through the narrative where it is necessary to explain the story beyond what we see on screen. He even tries to stop Herod’s soldiers in their senseless slaying, he facing Jesus’ trials and tribulations at his side and follows him through his final days to the cross.
Unashamedly message-driven, The King of Kings includes passages from the bible. It is however also a visual spectacle with towering pyramids, vivid sea scenes and dust storms, and a light touch to Jesus’s physical suffering in the crown of thorns and as he is raised onto the cross. This is, after all, a film for children and it’s perfect for parents to watch, with their youngsters to draw them into the heart of the Gospel message, and help guide them through biblical truths, and the enduring power of hope, love and redemption, in a modern manner.
