The music - dramatically riveting, the dialogue - astounding, the cinematography - a romance with the desert, the movie - well...just good.
That’s the best way I can sum up The Message...a not so well known bio epic and a movie in which you never see or hear the hero. I saw this one boring evening and just had to write about it. A religious film about the birth of islam and how it transformed the arab world into one of the most magnificent civilizations in human history (that it died out pretty soon is another matter). Its not the most attractive of plots, but period films always fascinate the serious cinegoer and this one is no exception.
The beginning easily catches your fantasy..An impossibly forlorn desert, a light sandstorm screeching a fearsome sound, three warrior horsemen covered in white riding in a blitzkrieg manner through dunes and dunes of sand ..... then they brusquely split into three different directions.
They are the messengers, carrying mohammad’s message to three major kingdoms of the world - egypt, abyssynia, persia.
Recently called the most influential man ever by william baird ( with christ being no.3..the two separated by newton..leading to much opposition), the prime character of the movie, the prophet of islam is never shown throughout the movie for his impersonation is against the spiritual message he imparted to the world. Its quite a feat, being able to make a much appreciated movie without a sight of the hero.
the highlights of the rather stretchy 3 hour long movie are some soul stirring moments of history and anthony quinn’s brilliant portrayal of the powerful, steady, reliable and soft at heart hamza, the most significant character in the movie after the unseen (but definitely not unsung) hero. The dialogue is very well written and fills up almost all the pores on the surface of boredom left behind by the slow screenplay. Its marvelous watching americans play arabs and like in other desert movies, they blend it all up in a style of their own. Anthony quinn outshines and outplays all the other actors making this a performance to remember forever. The oscar winning artist is deservingly known as one of the best among the mid century actors.
I would recommend this movie for those interested in the subject of the movie or in period movies and since I fall into both the categories, i’ll give it 3.5 on 5