Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

RIDLEY SCOTT – EXODUS GODS AND KINGS– 2014

First of all, for a remake, it is rather well done because the director decided to get rid of the most obvious unrealistic elements. To be short on the subject he got rid of all the static scenes like the waiting of the Jews to start for their migration outside the city, the never ending wait for Moses to come back down with the tables, the golden calf and the breaking of the tables, etc.

Then he tried to make things slightly more realistic, including with an Egyptian doctor explaining us how the various plagues are nothing but a processing phenomenon: a rebellion of crocodile make the river bloody and kills the fish that rot away bringing crop failure, worms and flies and then some kind of skin infections. But he finally had to come to less natural things: the locusts, well maybe, but then the hail in the storm became frankly iffy, and the final touch of the death of the first born was desperately mysterious and then we reached at this moment the problem of faith.

The escape sounds more logical in a way but the crossing of the sea was of course not explainable. We knew there was a ford but Moses goofed and took the road he did not know so that he did not come to the ford. Then we had to believe the water went down all by itself and then the tsunami was natural. Once again we came across the necessity to believe.

The alternative is of course to take this film as an action film. I must say Scott did a pretty job thanks to some very hard scenes like the hanging of hostages every day. But then one question comes up. The Hebrews or Jews had been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. That brings us back around 2000 years BEFORE our era. So how did these Jews become slaves in Egypt since Judaism did not exist yet since Moses had not intervened with their fate yet? Were they Jews before Judaism or did they invent Judaism in slavery? Where did they come from anyway?

But most of all this film is speaking to us directly in the situation we have been living in for some 15 years now, at least. This world, I mean the western world as confronted to the rest of the world and particularly the Muslim world, has been managing the three main religions of our times, the three religions that were born in the Middle East from Semitic traditions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, by imposing secularism to them all, the French going a lot farther than the English or the Germans. As long as we do not recognize the people around us as equal in the totality of their existential personalities, including their religions we are pushing them into some kind of mobilization against this secularism and hence against the norms of the west.

In France we became hysterical about “marriage for all” which excludes by the way any other solution than marriage: “everyone has to get married” is implied, and that formula was there to cover same sex marriage or gay marriage. Not to use the word gay or homosexual they got into that phrase and that provoked the Christians mostly into demonstrating for “A family for everyone.” In the same way anti-Semitism and the obligation for Jews not to show their religion in public places like schools, hospitals or social services, some are moving towards emigrating and becoming extreme Zionists. In the same way finally the Muslims being ordered to hide their religious heritage away from all public places including streets and train stations they are pushed into becoming fundamentalists.

If you negate the essence of a person, that person is going to move towards those who are acknowledging that essence, recognizing it and even valorizing it.

That is shown so well in the film. The Jews are refused basic recognition and humanity as Jews since they are not Egyptians and they are slaves (where did they come from?), then they will support any extreme action, be it from some men or from God. You may say “shibboleth since God does not exist,” like the French extreme secular supporters pretend. Then we saw this week the result in Paris (remember 01/07-08-09/14, and there is no reason for not more to come.

Fundamentalist secularists are just as dangerous as the fundamentalists of any religion because that extreme secularism is a fundamentalist religion, end the worst of them all since it has no God. In France they have “republican values.” What’s that frankly apart from “secularism” + “sexual multi-orientation for everyone”?

That film is a masterpiece.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU