An imaginative contemporary retelling of Christ’s life, set in a fictitious and politically tense African country, Mark Dornford-May’s Son of Man is a vivid, thrilling piece of cinema.
Christ’s story is told in simple terms using medieval mystery plays as a template. But familiar incidents are given a modern twist. Herod runs “Judea” with a rifle-toting militia; Christ (played as an adult by the mesmerising Andile Kosi) is conceived during a bloody attack on an infants’ school.
He finds one of his disciples, Thomas, working in a coalmine and becomes a charismatic freedom fighter, calling for political change via non-violent means.
