Thursday, December 21, 2006

The Nativity Story

"The Nativity Story, released on 7,000 screens worldwide on December 1, tells the story of the year before Jesus" birth until the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem, plus the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt to escape Herod"s wrath.

The film"s focus is on the spiritual and actual journeys of Mary of Nazareth in particular, and imagines the role of Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, as well as those of Elizabeth, Anna and Joachim, in ways that provide insight into God"s amazing intervention in their lives. Unlike some of the one-dimensional low-budget Bible movies of the past or the obligatory Christmas play at church, however endearing, The Nativity Story hopes to allow us to experience the characters" emotions and the difficulties they face in the context of their time and place."


I haven't seen the film yet, but the story behind it is interesting.

Check out "The Nativity Story: The Making of the Movie" here.

6 comments:

  1. Apparently Mary was a nice homely looking Canadian girl.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Toni, I haven't seen The Nativity but I understand that Mary is played by Keisha Castle-Hughes, who apparently is Australian, not Canadian. I loved her performance in Whale Rider.
    ... and if you are referring to the original Mary, I believe she was Jewish, not Canadian.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Phil is correct, altho I think she's from New Zealand and the controversy was that at 16, she's actually pregnant in real life with her boyfriend.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Phil - that was meant tongue in cheek. Guess if Mary was Jewish then Jesus might have been Jewish too, although you'd never guess it from all those paintings.

    ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. BTW I did a quick googleimage search, and I have to say that she does look quite jewish in most of those photos. Just that picture above that made me think she was more western in appearance.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Toni: If Mary was Canadian, I believe that Jesus would automatically have dual citizenship.

    Lisa: According to IMDB.com, Castle-Hughes was born and raised in Australia, but her mother was a Maori from New Zealand.

    ReplyDelete



Play nice - I will delete anything I don't want associated with this blog and I will delete anonymous comments.