/ 7 December 2007

True love prevails

DVDs OF THE WEEK: Maureen Brady delves into <i>One Night with the King</i>, a biblical Cinderella story.

DVDs OF THE WEEK: Maureen Brady delves into One Night with the King, a biblical Cinderella story.

Despite the hype that director Michael O Sajbel’s One Night with the King is based on a novel, Haddasah, by two unfamiliar (to me) writers (Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen), where this story really comes from is the Old Testament Book of Esther. The movie itself is the archetypal Cinderella story: humble peasant girl makes good, meets her prince in all his glory and lives happily ever after — but not without first undergoing a trial or two, because sweet little Esther’s something of a hero herself, given that her story is the founding myth of the Jewish festival of Purim.

Her stubborn contrariness and steadfast courage not only win her the prince but save her entire people as well — and she’s been remembered for it ever since. In an era when women were dispensable commodities, she must have been truly remarkable.

Esther’s story can be read as pure fairy tale, but we’re talking ancient mytho-history here, folks, and this movie dishes it up with loads of antique Eastern flair. Filmed in India, the production and costume designers, Aradhana Seth and Neeta Lulla, deserve plaudits for conjuring up such a stunningly believable ancient Persia — I can almost taste the curry, smell the incense!

The titular King, Xerxes (or Ahasuerus, as he’s called in the Bible), son of Darius, “reigned, from India even unto Ethiopia”, a vast empire, circa 485-465 BC.

The story starts about 500 years before Esther and Xerxes have their fling, in the time of King Saul and the Prophet Samuel (a brief cameo by the redoubtable Peter O’Toole), when, at the behest of Samuel, Saul smites the Agagites, but fails to eradicate them entirely, so a blood feud ensues, even unto the umpteenth generation.

Fast forward to Esther, or Haddasah (Tiffany DuPont), orphaned niece of the Jewish palace scribe, Mordecai (John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli in the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Haddasah/Esther is, of course, destined to swoon over of Prince Charming, beg yer pardon, King Xerxes (a heavily mascaraed Luke Goss, pop-singer-turned-actor), after he rejects his wife, Queen Vashti, because she refuses to obey a command from him. Oy vey, it all gets so complicated!

Along the way, there’s much intrigue and heartbreak, but — rest assured — in the end, true love prevails. Esther wins the heart of Xerxes, but also meets her nemesis, Haman the Agagite (the darkly sexy James Callis), who plots to eradicate all Jews in the Persian empire but ends up swinging from his own gallows tree. Among the confusing cast of thousands, a few deserve mention: Omar Sharif, as Prince Memucan; John Noble, as Prince Admantha; and Tommy “Tiny” Lister, who looms large like the genie of Aladdin’s lamp and booms with a surprisingly deep voice as Hegai the Royal Eunuch.

As anyone who has ever read the Book of Esther will know, there is much bloody slaughter involved, though one would never guess it from this sanitised version. Violence is only implied or gets dragged off-stage; there’s also no sex, except the distant impression of a kiss, and the only flesh on prominent display is Goss’s kingly pecs and abs. Still, it’s done with style and verve, depending on how much sugar you like in your coffee.

The film won a Camie award (yeah, I also had to ask), which is only awarded to “clean, moral and uplifting movies”, so you can safely give this DVD to your younger kids, although I think the girls might enjoy it more than the boys, seeing as they left all the guts and gore out. There’s not even one battle scene. On the other hand, maybe that’s not such a bad idea …

ALSO ON THE SHELF

Goodbye Bafana

Does anyone who’s been vaguely awake over the past few decades need to be reminded of the basics of Nelson Mandela’s incarceration on Robben Island? Perhaps, perhaps not. This movie is based on the memoir of the same title by one of Mandela’s prison guards, James Gregory, ably portrayed by Joseph Fiennes, and — yay! — he does the best Seffrican accent I’ve ever heard from a non-South African actor.

What director Jean-Luc van Damme offers is a different perspective to the usual ones: that of a jailer towards one of the prisoners in his charge, who wasn’t just any old prisoner either. Nor was Gregory the standard-issue, thick-headed, racist South African jailer: having grown up speaking isiXhosa, he was ordered to spy on Mandela and his fellow inmates. Out of this incongruity grew a unique friendship between keeper and kept, one that allows for a more nuanced view of a story that, by its very familiarity, can seem cast in the concrete of political correctness.

Dennis Haysbert, as Mandela, portrays the iconic legend with dignity, even manages to capture the peculiarities of his diction, but — at least for me – doesn’t quite reflect Madiba’s magical sparkle. Despite the seeming ease with which his mannerisms can be mimicked, the real Rolihlahla will always be the hardest of acts to follow, even for the most skilled of actors.

Kudos is due to the local partners in this co-production, who include producer David Wicht, the screenplay by Greg Latter and local casting by Moonyeen Lee. For South African viewers old enough to remember those troubled times, the overall design of the film will have a refreshingly recognisable and genuine local flavour. — Maureen Brady

Secrets of the Code

OK, so you’ve read the book, seen the movie, read all the spin-offs, but you’re still hankering after cracking The Code. What code? The Da Vinci Code, of course.

I must confess, I resisted all the hype around the book and movie for as long as I could, and didn’t read the one or go to see the other while it was on circuit, but after watching this DVD, narrated by Susan Sarandon, I succumbed, at least to watch the movie (also available on DVD). So all the critics were right: it’s nothing like the book (which I haven’t read), but it’s not so bad; it’s mildly entertaining on a wet night when one’s cooped up at home with nothing better to do — akin to watching Indiana Jones on Prozac (him, not me).

That said, I’d rather watch this DVD doccie again, which takes over where Dan Brown and the movie leave off, and delves, with the help of experts in many fields and other diverse commentators, including vehement detractors, much more deeply into the archaeological, historical and religious bases underlying Brown’s hypotheses.

Forget the fiction; the mysteries revealed in this illuminating documentary are far more challenging and thought-provoking, and help to shed light on the “hidden codes” that have for millennia framed our beliefs about our origins as the human species, at least from the predominant Western perspective. It’s well worth the visit, too. — MB.