Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

Amistad

AMISTAD. Cert. 15

Here is Spielberg's latest offering, a self-conscious attempt to exorcise the ghosts of slavery past.
Ostensibly based on a true story, the film tells of a slave-ship running illegal cargoes of West Africans from British colonies through Cuba into the developed world. Apparently they were destined for a Spanish dependency, but the slaves revolt, slay most of the crew and take over the ship, only to be thwarted by the remaining crewmen, unscrupulous Spaniards (sic), who sail them to New England rather than back to the Old World. Here the story picks up; the slaves are tried by the American courts for a number of different crimes. Some claim them as stolen property (Isabella II of Spain being one), others see them as escaped slaves and therefore worthy of death, still others (the abolitionists) see this as an opportunity for good works, and try to get the Africans sent back home.
Inevitably a tale of political shenanigans ensues, with the US President getting involved to stop the Confederate states from revolting, and the case passes from state to federal courts and the Supreme Court, where Anthony Hopkins steals the show as an elderly ex-President, John Quincy Adams. I will not reveal the ending, but it is nothing if not inevitable.
The Sunday Telegraph described the 'self-righteousness, with which the film is so laden as stultifying the drama'. This is not great art, nor is it, in my humble opinion, a great film, as Schindler's List clearly was. It is making an important point, but it does so with so many nods towards political correctness that the end result is rather static.
A final comment: there are two ways in which the film deals with religion. The first is the dour, deadly visages of the Christian Abolitionists, whose dirge-like singing outside the prison only serves to make them (and, by implication, their religion?) look pathetic. The other, more promising, is a conversation between two of the slaves, one of whom has gotten hold of a Bible, which he proceeds to 'read' through the pictures. We see the sufferings of Israel and the life of Christ ('Every-where he goes the sun goes with him' says one character of his halo!). The parallel with the sufferings of the slaves (and a subtext about this being the reality behind the religion of the Abolitionists that they themselves have forgotten?) repays careful thought.

Oliver Crisp, Guildford