A mythological is a movie or TV series which draws its story from a religious (and usually Hindu) text. Sometimes they are big budget action fests, sometimes they are quiet expressions of sincere faith, and often they are an awkward mix of the two. I love a good mythological; the storylines are always epic, the budgets are often minuscule, and there's something about that mix of passionate belief and wonky special effects that I find very compelling. Unfortunately, that same heady mix makes mythological movies blooming hard to review. All of which brings me to Jesus (1973), a mythological film drawing on a different religious text.
The story is mostly familiar. Mary (Raji) is visited by a glowing golden light, which informs her that she has been chosen to bear the Son of God. The same light also manifests itself to her husband Joseph and helpfully explains the situation to him, preventing a lot of awkward misunderstandings. Joseph and Mary must travel to Bethlehem in order to be counted in the census, and nativity ensues. Shepherds watch their flocks by night. Herald angels sing.
Meanwhile, three Wise Men from a far off land follow an unconvincing star through the desert. When the star disappears, they decide to consult with King Herod (Thikkurissy Sukumaran Nair). They explain the situation, telling Herod the good news about the prophesied King of the Jews being born soon, and Herod pretends to be pleased. He is not pleased, and orders that every male child under the age of two is to be slaughtered. This leads to a well conceived, of not necessarily well executed, montage in which scenes of the Roman soldiers cruelly slaughtering the innocents with their . . . tulwars? are interspersed with scenes of Herod cavorting with his favorite dancing girls.
And from there, the movie proceeds like a speed run through the Gospels. May and Joseph flee to Egypt! Young Jesus impresses the Temple elders with his wisdom and knowledge of scripture, and also helps Joseph with the carpentry. Adult Jesus (Murali Das) is tempted by the Devil (O. A. K. Thevar), then begins his ministry. It's a bit disjointed, really; Jesus performs a miracle, then the movie jumps to the next one, only occasionally pausing long enough for a bit of sermonizing.
The story is mainly drawn from the Gospel of Luke, but with some additions, most notably Salome (Jayalalithaa) dancing and being rewarded with the head of John the Baptist (Gemini Ganesan), because there's no way a movie of the era would pass on such a perfect opportunity for an item number. (There are actually two item numbers. Mary Magdalene (Ushakumari) gets one as well.)
The movie clearly didn't have much of a budget, and it shows. The special effects are impressively terrible, the costumers are a historical jumble, and most of the interior scenes seem to be filmed in the same house, shot from different angles in order to make it look like different buildings. On the other hand, the cast includes a number of big names of Malayalam cinema, so that's probably where the budget went.
And in the end I'm . . . not sure what to say about Jesus. It's easy to make jokes about the special effects and the pacing and so on (it's kind of my brand) but this movie is a sincere expression of religious faith. One thing I can say is that it was never boring. This is one part solemn religious epic, one part fever dream.
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