Mixed Reviews

I have no quarrel with the filmmakers changing details of the original narrative. Each reader of the text, each artist creating a physical representation, is free to select which details to include and which to exclude, which to emphasize and which to ignore, in telling a story. This is, after all, what narrative is. Furthermore, I want to go on record as saying this movie succeeds on many levels, including the spectacular animation, the music and the dramatization of both the evils of slavery and the hope of salvation. No one who sees this movie will emerge unmoved.

But I fear that some of the glaring changes in this movie make the story less powerful and less compelling than the original.

For example, in the original biblical narrative, it is Pharaoh’s daughter who finds Moses in the basket and adopts him. Moses is the step-nephew of Ramses, the Pharaoh of the Exodus. In the movie version, however, it is Ramses’ mother who rescues the infant and adopts him, making him the half brother of Ramses. This one change is enormous, making the story, at its core, a tale of sibling rivalry.

In a crucial scene, after Moses and Ramses run a mischievous chariot race, their father, Seti, tells Ramses that he is to be the future Pharaoh, and he must never be the weak link in the chain. This provides the motivation for Ramses’ future refusal to allow the slaves to leave--he refuses to become the weak Pharaoh who presided over the diminution of the Egyptian empire. It is an altogether human portrayal of the stubbornness of a monarch.

In the Bible, by contrast, the story is a clash of the titans, a victory of God against god. In ancient Egypt, Pharaoh claimed divinity for himself. Pharaoh cannot and will not recognize the power of another deity. The plagues, then, are designed to humiliate these false gods, to demonstrate repeatedly who is the ultimate power in the universe. God mercilessly toys with the Egyptian gods.

Take, for example, the first plague, the plague of blood. The Nile was the source of life in Egyptian theology, as it is even today in a country where the rich, lush greenery of the river’s banks contrasts starkly with the deathly brown of the Egyptian desert.

In the biblical narrative, Pharaoh gets up in the morning and goes to the river to be nurtured by the source of life and to pay homage to this god of life. Aaron touches the waters with his rod, and the waters turn to blood. Life becomes death. The symbolism is as powerful as it is clear: It is not the god of the Nile who gives life, but rather the God who created the universe, the very same God who is entering history and liberating an enslaved people.

This point is completely missed in the movie. Pharaoh is leisurely drifting down the Nile in his barge, surrounded by his slaves and strongmen. When Moses shouts from the bank of the river for Pharaoh to “let my people go,” Pharaoh orders his goons to seize Moses. As they are wading up to their knees, approaching Moses, the water is turned into blood, stopping the henchmen in their watery tracks. The meaning of this scene is lost on me. Just what is the point?

But in the biblical narrative, after the final plague--the death of the firstborn--Pharaoh, dejected, despondent, beaten, says to Moses: Go, worship your god, and pray for me as well. The ultimate power of God is accepted by Pharaoh. This is the Bible’s story. This is the point.