When Laura Steen of the Toronto office of Allied Integrated
Marketing offered me an opportunity to attend the Canadian advance media
screening of Jerusalem, at the Ontario Science Centre, I readily
accepted. Jerusalem is big in our life –
my wife has gone twice, I once with http://fifthgospelencounters.com/. In many respects, the trip galvanized my love
for the city. I regret not having done a
similar trip many years earlier. However,
better late than never.
I knew the film, as advertised to the press, was not going
to be about Jerusalem’s pivotal role in my Christian faith. I could not expect that of the key players
that made it possible – very capable people like Director, Producer, and Writer
Daniel Ferguson who has done excellent work on previous IMAX movies (yes, the
film is delivered to us courtesy of four different cameras – an IMAX 15-perf
65mm; a Sony F65; a RED Epic; and a Nikon D800E); Producer George Duffield;
Executive Producer Jake Eberts (who has
65 Oscar nominations, 27 of which he won; films include Gandhi, The Killing
Fields, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances with Wolves, A River Runs Through It, and
more); National Geographic; local film Patrons Mohammad & Najla Zaibak
and Mark & Suzanne Cohon; and of course, the very public Ontario Science
Centre. No, this film was clearly going
to challenge my ‘ownership’ perspective of this much-coveted part of the world that
at one time was seen and acted as the centre of the known world, being
well-situated geographically where Africa, Asia, and Europe meet.
The city is presented through the eyes, thoughts, lives, and
hopes of three very real lovers of Jerusalem with strong ties to their beloved
place of residence as well as their respective faiths – Christian, Jewish, and
Muslim.
Through these brilliant and forthright young women, the film
aims to change the way people think about Jerusalem. It certainly does that. It is evident, as one of the ladies said in
the press conference after the screening, “the beautiful ancient wall around
the Old City of Jerusalem is not the only wall in the place; while that one
needs to remain, the social walls inside need to be torn down.” The reference was to the fact that all three
of the residents felt their people lived alone in the city, not knowing much
about their neighbors who held two other religious and cultural perspectives. But although the need was recognized as to
what had to change, all agreed this was not “yet the time”.
Ferguson also wanted the viewer to feel he/she had actually
been to Jerusalem. He wanted to achieve
that in a unique way, trying to capture over 5,000 years of history in 45
minutes by putting the camera into very special places and giving us glimpses of
Jerusalem most of us would never see on our own or in groups. Getting permission for some of those shots –
low aerials over the city, underground tunnels and tombs, and even the now
closed to non-Muslims Dome of the Rock – took years to obtain. But it was indeed worth the wait.
It took me very little time to declare the film a success
from a cinematic perspective. It took me
much longer to determine just how I felt about its purpose. I noted a couple of things in the
script. When an American archaeologist
shares some of the events that took place on the famous “rock” over which the
Islamic Dome of the Rock now stands, she was very careful to state that “here
Abraham was tested when he was asked to sacrifice his son” with no mention the
son’s name. For the Christian and Jew it
was Isaac; for many Muslims it was Ishmael.
(You can read more on this at: http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/sacrifice.htm.) I also noticed that even where all three religions
were in agreement on a historical event that had significant religious, and
often Christian implications such as the aspects of Christ’s existence and
ministry, the script, otherwise handled excellently by all, including narrator
Benedict Cumberbatch (you’ll remember him
from his portrayal of Stephen Hawking, as well as the movie War Horse, The
Hobbit Trilogy, Sherlock, and Star Trek into Darkness) often simply introduced
it by saying “it is believed” or something similar. The film could have benefitted both in its
credibility as being capable of handling a religious topic – for as much as
Jerusalem is a physical place, there is global agreement that it has spiritual
significance – and in its purpose of trying to help us see it differently by
not taking the “politically correct” or “scientific defense” of such facts.
In the Gospels, Jesus asks one of His close disciples, “Who
do you say that I am?” That’s a question that everyone ultimately
answers, even by totally refusing to answer it or ignoring it. As I watched Jerusalem I wondered how
many might be facilitated in their attempt to provide an answer if they first
considered the question, “What then is Jerusalem?” The film goes a long way to answer that comprehensively.
Jerusalem opens March 7th at the Ontario Science
Centre in Toronto (http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/imax/film/40/),
but hopefully will be seen elsewhere in Canada soon. It has already opened in other countries. See it.
Go there. Better late; never is
not an option.
-- Ken B. Godevenos, Toronto. February 26, 2014
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