Two movies I watched on HBO recently featured muslim characters.
In the 'The 13th Warrior' Antonio Banderas plays the role of an exiled Arab nobleman who abets Vikings in their hair-raising encounters against a tribe of underground-dwelling neo-neanderthals. His role is in itself a rarity – a positive Muslim character in a major Hollywood film.
Morgan Freeman playing Kevin Costner's companion in 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' is another such role that comes to mind. Usually the stereotyped Muslim characters you see in every other mainstream Hollywood movie play the roles of 'islamic' terrorists.
Since it's a Hollywood movie, 'The 13th Warrior' suffers from fundamental errors like the climatic prayer scene before the final battle, where neither the Muslim nor the Norse characters recite traditional prayers but instead prayers from unverified sources are included by the scriptwriters for their ‘historical fantasy’ effect. The Antonio Banderas/Ibn Fadlan character recites a hollywood-ified version of the following prayer:
For all that we should have thought
and have not thought;
For all that we should have said
and have not said;
For all that we should have done,
and have not done;
We pray to the Lord for forgiveness.
For all that we should not have thought
but have thought;
For all that we should not have said
but have said;
For all that we should not have done,
but have done;
We pray to the Lord for forgiveness.
In the film version, Antonio Banderas as Ibn Fadlan prays not to 'Allah' but to 'Holy Father' in true Christian fashion.
Thankfully, the director does not show a Muslim character being cremated – as happens onscreen in 'The Ghost & the Darkness'. That blooper apart, TG&TD is one of my favourite films. It's like ‘Jaws’ with claws !
Unlike the majority of film adaptations, both films surprisingly complement the books they are based on – Michael Crichton's 'Eaters of the Dead' and 'Man-eaters of Tsavo' by John Patterson. Since both these films are based on actual persons/events, Muslim characters were essential to the plots.
How hard can it be for Hollywood to do a wee bit of research and portray characters belonging to any particular religion accurately?
