“The Prince of Egypt”
4/5 ****
“The Prince of Egypt” (1998), directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells, is a DreamWorks Animation film adapting the Book of Exodus, the biblical story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt to freedom. The film opens with Yocheved (Ofra Haza) placing her baby, Moses (Val Kilmer), into a basket to float down the Nile River, saving him from the Pharaoh Seti’s (Patrick Stewart) order to kill the newborn sons of the Hebrews. Moses is found by Queen Tuya (Helen Mirren), and she adopts him as her own. Years later, Moses learns of his true heritage and is chosen by God to lead the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt to freedom. Moses’s adoptive brother and the current Pharaoh, Ramesses II (Ralph Fiennes), refuses to free the Hebrews, and, in response, God sends ten plagues down on Egypt. The film combines beautiful and stylistic traditional animation with the powerful score by Hans Zimmer. As a result, the film has become a beloved classic in the eyes of many. With the Jewish holiday of Passover ending this week, it seemed appropriate to revisit this masterpiece of a film.
Passover is the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Hebrews’ escape from enslavement in Egypt. The holiday spans for seven to eight days, when observers do not eat leavened foods, which are foods containing agents like yeast that let the dough rise. The holiday is observed by millions around the world. While Moses and the story of the Exodus is seen in all three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), many Jewish people have a deep connection with the film since it tells the story of one of their most important holidays.
The film itself is clearly made with love and care, with the production team consulting with religious theologians from Christianity, Judaism and Islam to make sure that the film was as accurate and respectful as possible. In the end, they succeeded; the film is expertly woven together, full of foreshadowing and symbolism, some of which can be seen only on multiple rewatches. For starters, the use of the colors red and blue is an obvious nod to the divide between the Egyptians and the Hebrews, with the Egyptians wearing blue and the Hebrews wearing red. Throughout the film, Moses is the only member of his family wearing red, representing his Hebrew heritage. Near the beginning of the film, Ramesses gives Moses a ring with a blue scarab on it. When Moses returns with the intent to free his people, he returns the ring, symbolizing how he has officially severed his ties to his adoptive family and is following a path separate from his brother’s influence.
The infanticide of the Hebrews is a recurring image of the film. Moses learns of the death of the children through a fresco in the palace, where he sees the image of his people being murdered. Later, the first plague that God inflicts on Egypt is that the Nile River turns into blood, forcing the Egyptians to see all the Hebrew blood they have spilled over the years. Then, when Moses tries to warn Ramesses to let the Hebrews go before the final plague—the death of the first born—they are in front of the fresco. Ramesses refuses and Moses warns that he will regret that decision. The wide frame places Ramesses’s son in the center of the fresco, below all the Hebrew children being thrown into the Nile. Later, the boy becomes a victim of the tenth plague of Egypt.
During the sequence of remaining plagues of Egypt, the Plague of Frogs mirrors Moses’s arrival to the palace. Both Moses and the plagues were sent to punish the Pharaohs, who oppressed the Hebrews. The Plague of Frogs mirroring Moses’s arrival shows God’s true intentions for sending him to the palace. Throughout the scene, as the plagues continue and Egypt grows weaker, Moses slowly rises above Ramesses, showing that he is more powerful than the Pharaoh. Earlier in the film, when Moses talks to Seti (and later Ramesses), the Pharaoh is always parallel with the statues of their predecessors, representing their power and arrogance of believing that they are a god. At the end of the plagues, the statues of the Pharaohs and Egyptian gods crumble and are set ablaze, symbolizing that God is more powerful than the Pharaoh.
Overall, “The Prince of Egypt” is a beautiful film with incredible music and visuals. It adapts the story of the Book of Exodus in an incredibly engaging and respectful way. The amount of symbolism and layers in this film could only be achieved because the creators had a lot of passion for the project. DreamWorks did an incredible job making the film powerful and emotional for both religious and non-religious people alike.