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starlightbooklove · 3 months

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Ok, I finally saw Journey to Bethlehem and I can't begin to express how much I loved it, I'm a very difficult person to like a full musical, which is why movies like west side story and in the heights I only liked a few songs, like as movies in general they are good, but not to my personal taste.

Furthermore, the Christian film market usually ranges from very similar, commercial and honestly boring films, to 'reinterpretations' that remove plots and things that do not go at all with the Original material So I wasn't too confident in how good the trailer looked but I was willing to give it a look, thank goodness I did.

As a Christian who was raised in the church with a Christian family, my view of religion was quite Biased by their way of looking at it Which wasn't bad, but I was focused on the religious point of view sometimes excessively, so over time as I grew up and got to know the world around me, I moved away from that, And then after I grew up I returned to wanting to learn for myself without biased opinions about the Bible and to be able to understand it and really feel what everyone said they felt.

And so I came to the conclusion that You can save your self a Lot of time, if you just read the bible as what it is: a book, full of human people with a lot of imperfections, murky, miraculous, heartbreaking, crazy, steamy and even funny (yes, I'm not lying) stories. Religion, so focused on an idea that sometimes not even the Bible itself shares, forgets the human part that fills the stories, which is not very described in it either, but that one can easily interpret.

And thanks to this, criticism of Christians is very well founded on several occasions, and many people have the mistaken idea that the Bible is a 'holy book of holy people'.

That there is nothing more false, the book is holy or is different, unique and/or sacred because of how it was written and because of the stories that happen in it And how accompanied by prayer and the real desire to want to know, you can learn a lot no matter how many times you read it, not because of the people who lived them.

Who were they, let me tell you the test of God's patience.

Do you know Moses? The dude who divided the sea (by God's guidance), did you knew that (this one's funny), thanks to the people he brought out of Egypt after the plagues and that he have to spend 40 years with them in the desert? 🙃 no, it's not a joke and no, it's not an interpretation, literally thanks to the almost constant disobedience of the Israelis after being liberated they were punished with that, and the worst thing is that God had reasons, and I'll give you an example of that, these people decided to worship a damn golden cow that they built Because Moses had taken a long time to return from talking to God (when he went to look for the commandments ironically) less than a year after being freed by God from slavery.

Moses broke the first tables of commandments out of anger, and had to go look for them again, I repeat, no, I'm not playing, this is how it happened in the Bible And it was not only for this reason that they had to stay, it was a list of things that these people did, having as a testimony and example just by being free, still had Incredible faith problems.

The generation that left Egypt never saw or lived in the promised land, the only one who saw it out of mercy was Moses, but it was the descendants who managed to enter the promised land.

Haaa, bet you didn't knew that..

So, as you can see, no, not holy and/or perfect people at all. You might wonder, what does this have to do with the movie? And I will answer you, sorry, i got inspired, but the thing is, this is basically the context of why I liked it so much.

Journey to Bethlehem, it is the story of the birth of Jesus if we remove the religion and the holy holy beautiful peacefull look that some churches like to sell, and start to unite our 4 neurons and think about what, humanly, those people thought and did under the context of that time With fire songs, good performances, very good acting, and Milo (I'm not going to elaborate, I'll just say that I gained a tremendous crush on this man lmao)

And I want to list my favorite points from this in the movie.

-The representation of Mary

Arguably my favorite part of the movie, like, this woman really made me feel what it must have been like for her to carry the son of God.

Because N1: Mary is painted as this woman rejoicing in the news that she will become pregnant overnight when she is engaged, not married, in a patriarchal society With around 1000 laws about what you can and cannot do and the things you cannot do are punishable by death, One of them being being pregnant or having a child out of marriage 🙃🤭 what a blessing right?

And N2: For years Mary has been said to be holy and worshiped when she probably wouldn't approve of that herself, since she grew up with scriptures that said they couldn't worship idols. And they made her an idol. Something to make clear is that the only holy human, biblically speaking, is Jesus. Mary was a virgin, not a saint, she had more children with her husband after having Jesus, she had a life beyond him.

And this movie brings that out, it makes the most of it and I love it.

It shows what a struggle it must have been for her to have such a burden on her, she was young (in those days people married young), perhaps a teenager, Yes, they were raised differently and at the end of the day he was about to get married, but still, as I said, the Bible leaves out a lot of the human factor.

It can say that it passes a beginning and an end but it does not give you the means to connect both parts In the Bible, Mary respectfully accepts the news that she is going to have a baby, and the film respects that, but Mary was human, you know the fear and absolute madness must cause that an angel to appear to you out of nowhere and tell you that you are going to have a son who is going to be savior and king and then disappear (appreciation for the angel Gabriel btw My man would be me if i was an angel lmao) How the hell do you explain that to your parents? To your fiancé, no matter how versed everyone was in the scriptures, no one, NO ONE thought Jesus was going to be born from a humble virgin, Literally part of the reason (spoiler alert lmao) Jesus was killed was because no one believed that the king they were waiting for was a simple carpenter who was born in a manger. This probably included Mary herself, certainly her parents, and much more, Joseph. And she knew it, of course she knew it, she knew it was true but she had to know how hard it was to believe it and how much trouble she could get into for being pregnant. It's kind of expected that Mary would have doubts, rightly so which is why I love love the song "mother to a savior and king" i just feel that it had to be exactly what she thought.

... Give me eyes to see

Just how I can be

Carrying your son when I need You

To carry me

...Should a miracle feel like an anchor

Bringing shame upon my family

This burden is too heavy

I need strength to be

A mother to a savior and king

... You said, "Do not fear"

So Lord, if you are here

Help me have the faith you have in me

Give me eyes to see just how I can be

Mother to a savior

When I need saving

Like aaaa Chills, literal chills And I love it because it doesn't occur to people how society must have seen Mary, we see it as a blessing because we know how it all ended, but they didn't know. And they lived in a very very different society, if everyone had found out, they would have stoned Mary, that is the reality that they don't talk much about at Christmas.

Another fact that I liked is that Mary had to travel, traveling in this time does not imply the same as traveling in that time, with her 9 months of pregnancy (Because she gave birth as soon as she arrived in Bethlehem) on a donkey 🙃🙃🙃🙃 I don't think I have to elaborate much, i love how they portrayed here. You can say people knew how things were, they were used to it, yes, but Maria had never been pregnant and no matter how adapted you are to something, You can't erase the physical challenge of traveling with a giant belly in those conditions.

And let's not even talk about the birth, where they were in the city that: it was full of soldiers seeking to kill her and her baby, they broadcast the news that they would be killing babies and pregnant mothers In search of finding her, which is why they did not find asylum and had to go to a stable.

I think with the idea of ☺️ ah, Jesus was born in a manger ☺️We forget that 💀 oh, Jesus was born in a manger 💀 I don't know about you, but I think that is not the ideal place to give birth And yet the representations of that are so sugar coated We literally have a song called "Silent Night" tell me, explain to me what part of giving birth where the animals and their excrement are because an entire army is chasing you trying to kill you, sounds like a peaceful night????

Another detail is that Joseph (who I am obviously going to talk about) logically had to act as midwife for Mary, because no one was with them, no one wanted to be with them, that sounds like a horror story honestly, and no, I'm not taking away from how beautiful the whole purpose of Jesus is and everything is.

I am only pointing out the facts, which are raw and very Real about a situation like this, this was the reality as it is written, the Bible leaves things out But the rawness in several acts is never lacking.

One last thing to add is that I was afraid at first that they would portray Mary as a feminist ahead (by centuries) of her time But in an annoying and very political way because of how the movie started, And that they were going to make her not want the pregnancy and make it as if they had violently forced her, thank God that didn't happen, i loved her, The actress did a tremendous job interpreting her with personality without losing the respect (that is noted in the Bible) Mary had for God and the giant task she was given, and I actually liked that twist That perhaps Mary and Joseph did not know each other before they got engaged, which would not be unusual at that time. And that Mary said at the beginning of the movie that she believed she was destined for bigger things 🙃.They give more personality to this icon that we all have of her and I love it.

-The representation of Joseph

Starting with the fact that I have a big fat crush now on Milo Mannheim thanks to him (not important at all actually)

I think everyone, whether Christian or not, knows that Joseph is a secondary character every time the story of Jesus' birth is mentioned, even invisible I dare say. And I was always curious because of how he leaves after he is born in the Bible, it is simply not mentioned again and this is why I think there is this kind of unconscious belief that Jesus only had one parental figure and that was Mary.

When this can easily be contradicted by the little information we have in the Bible; Joseph was known as Joseph the carpenter, and who ended up being a carpenter? (Flashbacks to Sabrina lmao) Jesus, No matter how holy and amazing he was, Jesus grew up having to learn things, he wasn't born knowing, and obviously Mary didn't teach him how to work with wood so it's pretty logical to think that his stepfather (idk How to call it) taught him. That even if we leave this out (which is after the birth of Jesus) Joseph was THE man ok And this is with biblical foundation, he believed Mary and decided to continue with the wedding despite how crazy it all sounded, he helped her during the trip to Bethlehem, ALONE, he had to practically attend the birth

And the film captures that so, so well, I have no words to describe how impressed and excited I was to see how they highlighted so many things that I knew because yk, they are in the Bible but I hadn't been aware of noticing before.

How difficult it must have been for him to make the decision to believe Mary (which, let's be honest, takes a lot of faith to believe something like that) To follow her, and his song, my God, his song is so good. It's perfect for showing a morally gray human decision and the way he delivered that presentation ugh I just feel from my heart that it was exactly what Joseph thought. Cause:

I'm completely torn in two

Half of me believes her,

while the other half needs proof

This was no inmaculate conception

Just the ultimate deception

Gilty to the bone we should have her stoned now

Wait don't you throw your stoned no don't yoy judge her i look into her eyes i think i love her

I just 🫠🫠🫠 Jesus Christ

You don't come out of that movie without half falling for Joseph and that's something I never imagined saying in my life lmao

It was a very human way, full of personality and commitment, to portray the character. beyond the attractiveness of both the actor and the goofy personality they gave him. They gave it this degree of seriousness and part of the story that shows very clearly what they themselves say in the film and that is that God did not choose only Mary, She couldn't do everything she had to do alone, and among those things was raising a child that was given to her overnight and that she had to carry for nine months, and that does not deviate from history even though there are those who say no, it is written but I think it needed the human interpretation for people to see it, as I feel that they need with many stories from the bible. They definitely took their liberty to create the love story and I'm not complaining, I never thought at all that there must have been a lot of love both between them and for God for them to be able to go through all of that, And I like to believe that if it was like that, the love they had for each other, because only someone who loves another person so much is willing to go through all that, cause very easily Joseph could receive confirmation from God that what Mary said was true and say well, that's not my problem, but he decided to take responsibility with her, Which shows why God chose them, so yes, it has its freedoms but I don't think it is essentially far from reality.

Herodes

O. M. GOOOOODDD.

Antonio Banderas ate with his performance because damn I could feel the arrogance, the complete pleasure that those kings had for being rich and powerful, with that man And he didn't have much screen time, despite how comical he gets at times he manages to show how dangerous Herod was.

That, they didn't show it but that man ordered babies and pregnant mothers to be killed in the end, just for fear that they would take away his throne and his power, out of complete caress. And Antonio showed a funny and iconic man but also dangerous and capable of that and, and also they gave him the best song.

And i'm not Even joking, 'good to be king' is what Disney tried (and failed) to do with "Wish", It has all the magic and that lyricism that shows rough and raw things with incredible music That sticks to you despite how bad the bad guy is, from the villain songs of Disney's 2D movies, It's at the level of "poor unfortunate souls" and the Interpretation, God It's one of the best parts of the movie, weeks go by and I still can't get it out of my head

Finally, the relationship of Mary and Joseph.

I feel that all our lives, after thousands of times telling us the story of the birth of Jesus, the relationship of Mary and Joseph never had any importance beyond their role in the birth. So I loved the representation of that here, the way they took this theme of a planned marriage, which could very easily have been a reality, Along with the human and emotional reaction that these people must have had at the time, they give life and depth to Mary and Joseph, with the pros and cons.

With how difficult it was but also how strong they must have been as a couple to carry out the huge task they had, it made me see it from a more human point of view and give more value to their relationship.

They took their liberties, there are things that are super funny and have that absurd touch, but it is a story full of a lot of respect for the source, and full of a wonderful and human interpretation of of this great story, You don't feel it is religious, because it isn't, the music isn't just there and they are all very good (something that doesn't happen with all musicals).

And it is simply beautiful, it is made with love and it shows, they took advantage of every penny of their budget and put out this piece of art that I feel everyone should see for Christmas And that I would like to tattoo permanently on my brain lmao.

Go watch it, it's absolutely worth it.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading my entire almost essay of the movie, I hope you find your Joseph in life🫶😂

#journey to bethlehem #milo manheim #fiona palomo #antonio banderas #christian movies #christianity

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