Seder-Masochism

The film loosely follows the order of a traditional Passover seder and retells the events of the book of Exodus. Those who tell them are, in turn, Moses, Aaron, the Angel of Death, Jesus and the director’s own father. But the film’s real concern is a second story: according to the director humankind’s first deity was a goddess, and the account calls that figure back. Throughout the animation music is used as the carrier of the account, and religious text and popular song meet in the same scene. The view the film argues for stands as its own reading. While it jokes with the sacred text, the account does not stop taking it seriously. Nina Paley’s seventy eight minute American animated film was completed in 2018.