Lent Reviews Week 6: The Miracle Maker (2000)

Sorry this is so late, it's been a crazy last couple of weeks...

     The Miracle Maker was released March 31st, 2000. It is directed by Stanislav Sokolov and Derek W. Hayes and stars Ralph Fiennes. It tells the story of Jesus public ministry, death and Resurrection.

     The Miracle Maker is a stop-motion animated film and, though not as slick as Hollywood productions like A Nightmare Before Christmas is still visually stunning, featuring life-like figures and intricately detailed sets. It also utilizes hand-drawn animation  for scenes involving flashbacks, parables, or visions. Though somewhat distracting at first, this helps the film-makers to fill these scenes with more imaginative flourishes and makes for some really inspired bits of animation in contrast to the more restrained, realistic stop-motion.

     Ralph Fiennes portrayal of Jesus is very humanistic. His speech patterns are more naturalistic and less formal then usual and he is able to display kindness and geniality, humor, righteous anger, commanding authority and, yes, even human weakness at different times in the story. The other voice actors also do well in their respective role. I particularly enjoyed Ian Holm's take on Pilate, one much more vile than the usual more weak-hearted portrayals.

     Like every film ever made about Jesus, The Miracle Maker can't help but feel episodic at times. It manages better then most however by often framing the narrative, mainly, through the eyes of Jairus and his daughter, allowing the audience to grow closer to Jesus as they do. It also gives the viewer frequent glimpses into the doings of the pharisees and shows their growing concern over Jesus, imbuing the film with a greater sense of escalating conflict. As with many of these films it portrays Judas as a Zealot who slowly becomes disappointed with Christ's seeming failure to openly challenge Rome.

     At 90 minutes the film is a little rushed at times, especially during the scenes dealing with the Passion. In particular I felt that the Blessed Virgin, who is mostly absent after Jesus ministry starts, could have used more screen time. Despite this The Miracle Maker is still one of the better films I've seen about the life of Christ.

Score: 9/10

Well that's it for this Lent! Until next year its back to our regularly scheduled programming...