well kenneth branagh is a film
cinderella i think is the most
surprising Hollywood movie of the year
so far now why do I say it say it
because he tells the old tale in such a
straightforward an ironic way without
arch condescension without hyper
feminist subplots without Marxist
insinuations he just tells the story and
in so doing he actually allows something
to emerge which is very interesting
namely the Christian character of this
story now people I know might be
surprised I think that Cinderella is a
Christian allegory but keep in mind that
these fairy tales going back to the
Brothers Grimm and others in late
medieval early modern Europe we're
coming up out of a distinctively
Christian culture we know them largely
through Walt Disney's adaptations but
nevertheless the ground the roots of
these are in a richly Christian culture
so take a look at this story as Branagh
lays it out if this young girl Ella
who is the daughter of wonderful parents
beautiful mother who instilled in her a
strong sense of moral value a deeply
devoted father a good man the mother
dies young and that interrupts Ella's
idyllic childhood but her dying wish is
that her daughter you know will always
carry on her life with with courage and
with kindness
so she imparts the moral virtues to her
Ella grows up then under the tutelage of
her father who's a very good and decent
man the father remarries so brings
aboard you know now the stepmother and
stepsisters the father then dies
tragically while on a trip Ella gets the
terrible news that he had become sick
and died so now she finds herself
utterly under the control of her
stepmother famously wicked and she's
played by the great actress Cate
Blanchett the wicked stepmother and the
even more wicked stepsisters and Ella
becomes a victim of this trio it's very
interesting that they have a
at the stepmother and stepsisters called
Lucifer and that's got roots back in the
old telling of the story so cruel are
they that they make her basically into a
slave she can't sleep in her bedroom and
when she's cold at night she has to
sleep by the dying embers of the fire
which then leads her to be covered in
ashes and that in turn leads her
stepsisters to give her the cruel
nickname Cinderella right so what do you
have here and I know this familiar story
but you've got this beautiful vivacious
morally upright young woman who has now
fallen into a kind of imprisonment a
sort of slavery or servitude under the
tutelage in the direction of very cruel
people who have a cat who bears the name
of the devil more to it her beauty and
she's very beautiful is covered over
it's obscured by ashes well it doesn't
take an enormous leap of imagination to
appreciate this as an allegory of the
fall so we are made in God's image and
likeness were made of for the moral life
were made beautifully in God's image
but we've fallen through sin and death
into a sort of servitude were imprisoned
by powers ultimately by the devil by
Lucifer what it's led to is not only an
enslavement but an obscuring of our
beauty think of the ashes covering
Cinderella as a covering over of the
original beauty of human beings okay so
that's in in mind as the story unfolds
so go back now to bran --is telling
which is again deeply rooted in the
traditional telling of the story Ella's
out in the woods and she sees this
beautiful stag this great a creature and
it's being pursued by a hunting party
the head of the hunting party is this
young man he's the prince of the realm
the son of the king and the two of them
meet and they fall almost anything in
love but Ella leaves the scene without
identifying herself so the Prince calls
for this this fall where all the young
women of the realm are invited hoping to
lure his beloved to the ball and then we
know the stepmother in steps
sisters try to block Cinderella in every
way so she can't go to the ball but
through the administrations of her fairy
godmother important godmother she's able
to get to the ball she meets the prince
at senator Sara they meet fall in love
now it's easy enough to say well this is
just like nice old fairytale romance but
go back now to the stag the stag is an
ancient symbol of Christ so his presence
there in the narrative is meant to
signal to us his presence in the overall
narrative now symbolically of this story
she meets a prince the son of the King
well who's that
but Jesus who is the son of his father
who has been sent what to draw the
fallen human race back into marriage
with him this is a very strong biblical
theme the prophet Isaiah said your
builder meaning God will marry you so
here's the human race it's fallen into
into sin and so on alienation but your
builder will come to marry you now Reed
brand Petrie's book if you want every
detail on this but that wedding the
marriage theme is signaled from
beginning to end of the Gospels Jesus is
sent he's the Prince the son of the king
who's been sent to attract a beloved and
to marry her who's the her in question
but his bride the church the fathers of
church refer to this as the sacrum
connubial
which means the holy wedding the holy
marriage and they saw the sacrum
connubial as equivalent to what they
call the admirable a commercial that
means the admirable exchange whereby
Christ took from us what was ours namely
sin and death swallowed them up and gave
us what is his name li life and the
divine life what you see here now I'm
gonna argue in the marriage of the
prince and Cinderella this imprisoned
woman whose beauty was covered over by
the ashes and then giving to her all the
privileges and
beauty and an elevation of his own life
what you see is the sacrum connubial
which involves the admirable a
commercial it's an allegory of salvation
in other words the defeat of the wicked
principle symbolized by the stepmother
and stepsisters the defeat of Lucifer
and now raising this fallen humanity up
to new life one of the surest signs then
this has taken place it's the very end
of the movie and I find it very moving
is Cinderella now has been rescued the
prince has come and even though there's
one last effort by the wicked stepmother
to keep her away he out Fox's her and he
he rescues Cinderella and she's heading
off now to her new life but she turns
back to the stepmother and does that uh
tur a word of hatred or retribution she
says I forgive you see there's the
divine life there's a divine life which
has now been placed inside of her
through the sacrum connubial and the
admirable a commercial and that brings
the story to its conclusion so I would
urge people a go see this movie
it's um bring the whole family it's one
of those rare movies you bring a mom and
dad grandpa grandma and the kids taking
this this can abuse realized too you are
watching a very powerful retelling of
the Christian story
you