The road between simple drama and riotous satire blurs in The E-book of Clarence, the second characteristic movie by The More durable They Fall‘s Jeymes Samuel (stage title: The Bullitts). The English singer-turned-filmmaker sinks his enamel into an bold inquiry of religion and morality, with an imagined story of a wannabe thirteenth Apostle in 33 A.D., who decides to grow to be a brand new Messiah.

The result’s hilarious, romantic, deeply introspective, and surprisingly religious for a movie that balances an atheistic method to religion with a distinctly Christian worldview. Although let it not be mentioned that The E-book of Clarence is in any respect agnostic in presentation. It seems to be concurrently , recalling the Biblical epics of Hollywood’s Golden Age, whereas taking a transformative method to its ecclesiastical story.

With a mostly-Black ensemble, the movie acts implicitly (and thru one hilarious punchline, explicitly) as a corrective to historical past’s quite a few whitewashed Bible movies. Samuel additional unfurls this racial dynamic into a bigger, all-encompassing saga about not simply fashionable Blackness and state oppression, however the fashionable conundrum of religion, matters it covers whereas delicately balancing deft visible comedy and emotional sincerity.

Who’s Clarence in The E-book of Clarence?

Credit score: Legendary Leisure / Moris Puccio

After its Ben-Hur impressed opening titles, The E-book of Clarence fittingly begins with a chariot race, by which Mary Magdalene (Teyana Taylor) overtakes finest mates Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) and Elijah (RJ Cyler) on the streets of Jerusalem. The movie has its farcical parts, however this opening scene isn’t one in every of them. Relatively, it seeks to ascertain an easy method to character — the movie introduces most relationships by motion, tone, and physique language, not simply dialogue — in addition to a matter-of-fact-ness surrounding the concept the no-good, road stage hoodlum Clarence is a Biblical Forrest Gump, intersecting with key figures within the lifetime of Jesus Christ (Nicholas Pinnock), and talking to them with a mixture of medieval “Ye Olde” English and fashionable AAVE. 

Clarence, a recognized troublemaker, is an atheist, whereas his estranged, pious twin brother (additionally performed by Stanfield) occurs to be the Apostle Thomas. Nevertheless, the rift between them doesn’t come right down to their religion in God, however their religion in one another — or lack thereof — when it comes to their private convictions. Thomas believes the wayward Clarence won’t ever quantity to something. Clarence, in the meantime, holds Thomas’ blinkered dedication to Jesus in opposition to him, as a result of it means turning his again on their ailing mom (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), with whom Clarence maintains a pleasant, heartfelt dynamic. 

Credit score: Legendary Leisure / Moris Puccio

Because it occurs, Clarence can be deeply in love with Varina (Anna Diop), the sister of one in every of his collectors: the vengeful Jedediah the Horrible (Eric Kofi-Abrefa). Between a brother he resents (and hopes to one-up) and a love curiosity one diploma away from a harmful man who needs him lifeless, Clarence cooks up a scheme to get in Jedediah’s good graces. However when his makes an attempt to grow to be Jesus’ thirteenth Apostle fail, he tries the subsequent neatest thing: conning his means into Messiah standing by manufacturing miracles, as a way to earn not solely respect, however sufficient contributions to settle his money owed.

There’s a depth to Clarence that Stanfield conveys by his eyes alone. The character is all the time pondering, contemplating his subsequent transfer, and reflecting on his social and ethical standing. Because the movie goes on, all the things he needs, whether or not marriage, respect, or freedom from debt, all seem doable if he decides to tidy up his act and be a greater, extra accountable man. Nevertheless, whereas the obvious path in such tales actually lies earlier than him — embracing religion and discovering God — The E-book of Clarence isn’t involved with an answer this easy. Clarence all the time sticks to his atheistic weapons, as a result of Samuel’s story isn’t a few man discovering religion. Relatively, it’s a few man working throughout the identical religious and moral framework as these in search of non secular salvation. It’s a narrative about what it takes to grow to be a greater individual, and the way in which it’s advised is each dazzling and tongue-in-cheek.

The E-book of Clarence is a visually-inspired comedy.

Credit score: Legendary Leisure / Moris Puccio

Usually, fashionable Hollywood comedies take a risk-free aesthetic method, between flat lighting that conveys little, blocking that conveys even much less, and framing geared in direction of having comedians improvise dialogue. The E-book of Clarence shatters that mildew utterly, by drawing on the classical formalism of the epics on which it riffs (you’re prone to discover homages to William Wyler and George Stevens alongside fashionable tips like Snorricam).

The movie additionally has no qualms about magical realism, regardless of its deal with a nonbeliever. On the streets of Jerusalem, cannabis will get you excessive — actually. It makes you float like a sizzling air balloon. Enlightenment arrives cartoonishly, within the type of glowing white mild above your head (lightbulbs haven’t been invented but), whereas poetic flirtation, throughout which {couples} gaze longingly at each other, is so intoxicating that it modifications the colour of 1’s eyes. Even Jesus is imbued with supernatural skills akin to Neo from The Matrix (his bodily presence, nonetheless, is so otherworldly as to be overwhelming; Pinnock conveys a chic sense of affection and knowledge by his gaze).

Regardless of the film typically breaking the immersion of its antiquated dialogue — at one level, Joseph calls Clarence a “dumbass” — it by no means turns its again on its visible palette, courtesy of cinematographer Rob Hardy. It’s a beautiful trying film, with the heat and flicker of candle lights illuminating inside scenes, and delicate, soft-focus close-ups capturing Clarence and Varina’s stolen moments of intimacy.

The humor can be punctuated by sudden actions of the body; it’s a persistently watchable movie. That may sound like backhanded reward, however The E-book of Clarence is the type of film you would watch on mute — which is to say, actually watch and perceive by its visuals alone. After all, the precision of its filmmaking would quantity to little if what the digital camera was capturing weren’t so daring and interesting within the first place.

Jeymes Samuel crafts a sensible and rigorous satire.

Credit score: Legendary Leisure / Moris Puccio

Like his first movie, the revisionist Western The More durable They Fall, Samuel remixes the parable and historical past with one eye on the current. With an all-star forged of Black actors from varied nations — England’s David Oyelowo performs a sarcastic, short-tempered John the Baptist; French star Omar Sy performs Clarence’s loyal warrior sidekick Barnabas — the movie’s casting is deeply political, although not merely by its optics. The characters’ accents run the gamut from American and English to Jamaican and West African (a number of the actors are Nigerian and Senegalese), and Samuel is hardly delicate about his social commentary about fashionable Blackness as a western assemble, and the experiences that bind it. 

At any time when Roman guards enter the image, all performed by white actors, the racial dynamic turns into overt by each dialogue and motion. They behave as historic oppressors would, however a few of their specifics are modulated to match how American police officers would possibly behave, like throwing a spear at an unarmed character working away earlier than claiming self-defense — which finally results in a shifting subplot about Black resilience within the face of adversity.

That is, nonetheless, arguably the meta-textual theme as effectively. In The E-book of Clarence, the struggling of Christ-like figures (whether or not Clarence or Jesus himself) comes laced with up to date commentary by fleeting however memorable strains of dialogue — most notably, from Clarence’s mom, who sees the larger image of the hazard her son is in. If to undergo is to be Christ-like, then how does one confront the notion of a whole folks being pressured to undergo underneath the boot-heels of white supremacy? 

Credit score: Legendary Leisure / Moris Puccio

Like Jesus, Clarence attracts the ire of Roman governor Pontius Pilate (James McAvoy) for his claims of divinity, and the story takes on extra layers the extra Clarence’s story begins to resemble the Bible. Whereas there was no historic or Biblical equal to Clarence, Thomas is believed, by some, to be the brother of Jesus — even perhaps his twin — making Samuel’s alternative of household connection particularly significant, as if he had created Clarence as a stand-in for Jesus himself, and for Messianic concepts he wished to discover.

By having two simultaneous Jesus tales unfolding directly, The E-book of Clarence is ready to confront and reckon with two completely different paths to scrutinizing morality — non secular and non-religious — whereas presenting a divine and supernatural model of Jesus (as has appeared in quite a few movies) alongside a a corruptible Messiah with human foibles. Whereas the film’s model of Jesus has a robust, all-knowing, all-loving aura, Clarence struggles every day with the query of whether or not he can transcend his selfishness regardless of not believing in God.

The movie’s very premise represents a contemporary disaster of religion within the face of oppression (fewer Black Individuals, for example, have recognized as non secular lately), and Samuel creates dueling embodiments of Jesus by using a long-held debate about his divinity as if it have been a story prism. The E-book of Clarence makes use of the dilemma between believing in Jesus, the divine prophet, and Jesus the mortal man — believing in scripture or historical past — to separate the very idea of Jesus in two, however with out ever presenting them as mutual exclusives.

It is a gorgeous reconciliation of concepts often at odds, taking the type of a knee-slapping historic comedy that proves totally absorbing and emotionally shifting in its most interesting moments. The E-book of Clarence is a farce that takes itself severely, utilizing clashing questions of perception to show the well-tread cinematic spectacle of Jesus’ life into a robust, multifaceted story of religious disaster. 

The right way to watch: The E-book of Clarence is now displaying in theaters.