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The Son of Man from a New Perspective

This film opens up with the biblical scene from Matthew 4:1 of Jesus being
tempted in the dessert by Satan. “Son of Man begins with Jesus’ temptation in the
desert, a scene which is stylistically heavily influenced by magic realism.1’’ Magical
realism gives the audience a realism view of the real world while adding magical
elements. Magical elements include the supernatural element of the devil. Satan
tempts Jesus by asking him to turn stones into bread, saying he should throw
himself off a cliff and offers to “give him the world.” Jesus continues to walk away
from Satan saying loyal to the Lord. When Satan tell Jesus if he follows him he will
give him the world, Jesus refuses by pushing Satan down a hill yelling, “Get behind
me Satan.” Mark Domford-May chooses this as the introduction to showcase the role
Satan will be playing in this film. Satan makes various appearances through out the
film, therefore the director makes an outstanding decision to familiarize the
audience with this character. The hoof cane is also incorporated in this scene, which
is another aspect shown in the remainder of the film. Later on in the film, Satan is
always showed walking with this cane. Therefore if the audience sees the cane
before they see Satan, they are aware he is present at the time. Domford-May brings
Satan into a lot of the more tragic and powerful scenes in this film to show that
Satan is always with us.
The Son of Man’s impersonation of Satan shows that he is always present. The
opening scene showed that he is always amongst us to tempt us rather than control
us. If he was powerful enough, he would have controlled Jesus in the dessert and
had him do whatever he wanted him to. Mel Gibson portrayed the opposite of this in
The Passion of the Christ; his take on Satan was that when people do evil things it’s
due to the devil controlling them. While Jesus was being beaten, the camera pans
across the crowd as Satan appears behind the people torturing Jesus. It can be
assumed that Satan controls these people as they beat Jesus. In Son of Man, Satan

1 "(The) Son Of (The) Man, And Jesus." A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark: 533-60.
doi:10.1163/ej.9789004179738.i-596.31.
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makes more of an on-lookers appearance. He is seen among tragic scenes such as

the schoolhouse where Mary hid and when the kids were being beaten in the middle
of the road. Satan is presented in the aspect that he did not force people to do these
terrible things but he’s making the statement of, “if your God allows these things to
happen does he really possess unconditional love?” His appearance challenges the
characters’ faith that God would allow everyone to experience these hardships.
Through out the film, one of the characters Satan constantly challenged was
Mary. Satan constantly appears when Mary is faced with death however she stays
faithful to God and chooses life. Mary’s first appearance in the film occurs when she
is looking for a place to hide from the violent raid from the civil war. She comes
across an abandoned school accompanied by a mass amount of dead bodies. She
then lays among the dead bodies to disguise herself from the massacre. This is when
the camera closes in on the hoof cane being carried by the devil. This was to show
that Satan is present in a time of horror to tempt us to turn against the Lord. Shortly
after he walks out of the school, the angel Gabriel then visits Mary. He tells her a son
will be born upon her that is the Son of God. Mary then praises the Lord by singing
Mary’s Song from Luke 1:46. She proclaims her love and appreciation for God within
this beautiful tune. She displays so much faith in God that she was not tempted by
Satan to stray from her beliefs.
The camera gives a close up of Satan’s face as he shows up again after Jesus is
born and they come across the children being murdered in the streets. This angers
Mary as she yells at the angel Gabriel. She is confused and scared as to why God is
allowing these terrible things to happen to children. However, her faith is still in her
son and how he will help the people. The third time Mary is faced with death is
when Jesus is on the cross. Satan appears yet again however he soon realized he is
unwelcomed. Mary begins to sing again with the bystanders joining in; a large group
then begins to form in front of the cross. They all sing and chant about uniting
against the soldiers. Even held at gunpoint, the crowd does not stop due to their
faith and love in the Lord. The soldiers eventually fire off warning shots in which the
crowd crouches down. Domford-May chooses this opportunity to display how
strong Mary’s character is as she is the first to turn to the soldiers and begins to sing
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again. This is symbolic because by rebelling against “death” (the soldiers could have
shot her for protesting) she is choosing “life.” This analogy represents Mary
choosing life over death when she is constantly facing death. Mary is not disturbed
by the horrors she has experienced because her faith in the Lord is stronger than the
fears of the war.
Domford-May does an excellent job of representing Mary is a way that she
has never been portrayed. Before viewing this film, a stereotypical view of Mary was
the “perfect mother” that loved her son while soft spoken and kind to everyone. This
film portrays her to look like just another woman. She exhibits fear upon entering
the schoolhouse, which gives her a very humanistic appearance. She does not
contain the “perfect face” or the “perfect body,” she appears to be a regular African
citizen. Also in a lot of biblical stories, Mary isn’t involved with a lot of situations
with her son as he grows up. Domford-May places Mary in a lot of powerful scenes
to show her significant; she also doesn’t stay quiet in a lot of them. This gives Mary a
new light of standing up for what she believes in. The stereotypical Mary was based
off a Jewish woman; in this culture women don’t have much significance in society.
They were looked down upon in the aspect that they were only good for birthing
children, cooking, and tending to their husbands’ needs. Domford-May takes an
interesting perspective of incorporating a different culture into Mary’s character.
Another character that also received a new cultural image was Jesus. For the
most part he acted like the stereotypical Jesus that spread God’s word and love. His
appearance was slightly more put together than the rest of the characters. Jesus
wore a button up shirt that was tucked into his jeans. Some of the other characters
would wear button up shirts however Jesus was the only one that tucked his in.
Another stereotype of Jesus is that he has long curly brown hair and a beard. This
Jesus was bald, which made him stand out even more. Jesus is supposed to stand out
from the crowd especially since he is an example of incarnation.
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Incarnation is an earthly form of an embodied spirit. “The incarnation, the

word becoming flesh, is considered God’s action to right this original wrong. 2” This
theory derives from multiple beliefs of God’s true intensions when he sent his son to
earth. One theory is God was not satisfied with the actions of his people therefore he
wanted to come to earth to fix what he felt needed fixing. Overberg describes it as
God pitching his tent among us.3 A similar situation happened when God told Noah
to build the ark. God may have been unhappy with the way the people were acting
so he wanted to cast a flood to wipe them out. This way Noah provided a fresh start
to the world that would have been accurate to God’s liking. This time, rather than
God wiping out the entire population he must have figured he could make the
alterations in the world that he wanted to see. Son of Man exemplified incarnation
through Jesus constantly saying, “this is my world.” Jesus says this to several people
such as Satan and Gabriel to show his dominance in the world. Jesus says this
because he is here as an image of God and he will not allow anyone or anything to
become a roadblock of his purpose on earth.
Son of Man provides an alternative take on Jesus Christ by incorporating
African culture into the Gospel stories. Domford-May retells the stories of Jesus that
are known all too well while changing how the audience views these characters they
already know. He shows Satan as being the lingering evil tempting the characters to
stray from their faith in the Lord. An entire new light was shed upon Mary; she
played a larger role than she usually does in the biblical stories. Jesus’s character
couldn’t be altered too much however him being apart of a different culture
provided an excellent spin on his character. He accurately represented the theory of
incarnation through his actions and constantly reminding everyone that this was his
world. Through telling a story others are already familiar with through a

2 Moore, Roger. "Movie review: Son of Man -- 4 out of 5 stars." OrlandoSentinel.com. August 05,
2009. Accessed April 28th, 2017.

3 Overberg S.J., Kenneth R. The Incarnation: God’s Gift of Love Accessed April 28th, 2017
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perspective of another culture allows the audience to develop new emotions

towards the characters.
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Bibliography
Moore, Roger. "Movie review: Son of Man -- 4 out of 5 stars." OrlandoSentinel.com. August 05,
2009. Accessed April 28th, 2017. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/orl-movie-
review-son-of-man-story.html.

Overberg S.J., Kenneth R. The Incarnation: God’s Gift of Love Accessed April 28th, 2017

"(The) Son Of (The) Man, And Jesus." A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark: 533-60.
doi:10.1163/ej.9789004179738.i-596.31.