Ewan McGregor goes biblical
Last Days in the Desert Edinburgh International Film Festival
Even in our post-Christian secular age, the intense drama of the life of Jesus continues to challenge the cinematic artistry of film-makers.
Writer-director Rodrigo Garcia’s majestically evocative and visually poetic Last Days in the Desert - premiered Europe-wide at Edinburgh International Film Festival this week - brilliantly blends superb photo-craftsmanship, deeply sensitive narrative and flashes of theological insight into a memorably compelling response to that perennial challenge of imaging Jesus through art.
The Devil’s Three Temptations [Matthew 4.1-11] are not portrayed: such are assumed to have already happened [but will a secular audience know about them?]. Instead, we first encounter Jesus trekking wearily out of the desert as his 40 days in solitary fasting draw to a close - yet still sensing himself not fully ready for the divinely-given mission which he knows is his calling.
His alter ego - who can be equated with the Devil - appears beside him, not-too-subtly trying to undermine his confidence, feed his anxiety and sow doubts about God. Is he really a loving Father?
What if he is a self-centred deity, amusing himself over humanity’s woes and petty concerns?
Playing both Jesus and alter ego/Devil, Ewan McGregor’s landmark performance deploys with consummate skill and totally engaging sensitivity a gamut of facial expression, verbal economy and power to create mood - especially once Jesus abandons solitariness to stay with a desertdwelling family torn by the mother’s mysterious illness, the son’s yearning to be free, and the father’s sudden death.
Tye Sheridan and Ciaran Hinds’ highly-charged portrayals of this tempestuous father-son relationship, profoundly affecting Jesus’ understanding of what it is to be human, are quite exceptional.
Amid awesome desert panoramas captured by Emmanuel Lubezki’s spectacular cinematography, Jesus finally focuses his destiny and leaves the wilderness - then, harrowingly, we see him dying on the cross, his bloodsplattered body gasping its last.
Profoundly contemplative throughout, and imbued with sincere reverence for its subject, this film is truly a masterpiece, deserving widest-possible showing.