PRINCE OF EGYPT and Healing Broken Relationships

the most heartbreaking moment in the entire film for me is knowing the story in advance when we see them reunite and how happy they are to see each other and watching and going that's not gonna last moses look at you it's gonna get real bad guys hello and welcome to cinema therapy i'm jonathan decker i'm a licensed therapist i adore the cinema this is alan searight professional filmmaker popcorn eater popcorn connoisseur and happy easter happy passover happy holy week and for those of you who do not come from abrahamic traditions we've still got a pretty banging movie for you i don't know what you always have to be judging me because i only believe in science i i'm amazed we did a community post on youtube say and we mentioned that we were going to do this film at some point how many people chimed in said i'm an atheist and i love prince of egypt one of my favorite films i'm i'm pagan i'm agnostic but you know anything but they're not christian not jewish but they love prince of egypt why do you think that is because it's a damn good movie is why it is insane how good this movie is yeah it is beautiful the songs are incredible the score is great val kilmer is vowel kilmering it up it's everything you could want to film yeah fantastic cast and and really i mean as far as being a biblical film for those who believe in the bible and consider it a work of scripture it's very respectful to the source material sure and for those who aren't it has a very grounded human story about sibling relationships and about conflict reconciliation or lack of reconciliation and one thing i do a lot of in my therapy practice is i help people who are estranged from the people that they love they used to be close and now bitterness and resentment have settled in they're not talking to each other bridges have been burned and they're either they're trying to mend the fences or they're trying to figure out how do i soldier on because i've got this big hole where someone i loved you know there's an absence there so aside from the plagues this is pretty much what you deal with every day yes not the plagues but everything else okay so a lot of you know the story for those who don't there is in egypt the hebrew people are enslaved to the egyptians they're crying for god to deliver them and bring them to their promised land [Music] and pharaoh decides the hebrews are going too numerous and we're going to kill a whole bunch of them they're going to kill all the all the children so moses is mother and so she rushes to the river puts him in in the thatch basket that she makes and shows him up river trusting that he will be preserved by a miracle because if he stays he's going to die and he lands where's he land after going on the disney jungle river cruise he goes on the disney jungle river cruise and lands at memphis i don't remember what it's called but it's it's the uh the royal palace no that's the literal name is it really is that where memphis memphis comes from egypt i think it was i think that was the name of the royal johanna james friend of the show will correct me on this because she is an expert in like ancient egyptian whatever hi guys i heard my name alan you're kind of right memphis was the capital city of ancient egypt and it's about 12 miles down the nile from modern day cairo which is where the pyramids are in giza plateau so well done also the temple architecture in this movie is spot on so 10 points to gryffindor wrong movie but yeah over to you anyway it's the royal palace he's there right and he's a baby and yeah so so pharaoh's wife and the bible is pharaoh's daughter but pharaoh's wife in the film sees this child takes pity on him brings him in and raises him as her own all these years later moses has been raised to believe that he is egyptian that he is a prince of egypt that he is brother of ramses and these two are a couple of troublemakers they really are and so they're they're having a good time and and moses keeps getting ramses into trouble you don't think they'll get in trouble for this do you no not a chance so they're brought before pharaoh their father why do the gods torment me with such reckless destructive blasphemous sons i love i love the shot that shows the actual pharaoh and in the background is the giant sculpture of him yeah where it's just mirrored that there's so much uh expectation and responsibility that these aren't people in the eyes of the egyptians they are gods so even though ramses loves moses and moses loves ramses there's already a little bit of a wedge in there that's going to be driven in further and will completely split split them apart later but i love the foreshadowing when they're having this conversation one damaged temple does not destroy centuries of tradition but one weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty so there's a lot there's a lot of layers in this screenplay for quote unquote a family film a kid's film what can you tell us about how it's written the studio did a lot of homework to make sure that they were going to accurately represent you know the christian beliefs the jewish beliefs that are present in the film they tried to do as much as they could to get things to be historically accurate within you know the story they wanted to tell obviously right i mean they took there's creative livers obviously which they own up front yeah yeah it does a fantastic job of building relationships where there aren't really relationships in the old testament briefly this happened sort of happened yeah this happened and and in this they infer a whole lot of relationship and build really compelling really believable relationships and then the you know the voice acting from val kilmer and ray fines is yeah just brilliant we can take care of that i will make it so it never happened nothing you can say can change what i've done one from everybody we'll get to sandra bullock and jeff goldblum in a minute but what really i what stands out to me is you don't have a lot of animated family oriented dramas no you know no comedies upstairs action movies sure yeah dramas yeah musical not a lot but like straight up drama and this film is a drama and it resonates hard i mean it's a musical as well but it resonates hard the dialogue and and the voice acting just conveys such real emotion and real connection and i think this is why so many people gravitate to this film because unlike a lot of bible films there's genuine humanity here yeah it's just a good story um this week from lisa's passion for popcorn we have got this is the easter special right well it's called island passion which it tastes like easter though which sounds kind of like a trashy nbc reality show oh my gosh next week on island passion but it actually is very tasty um multi it's basically easter egg i am not gonna vote purple off the island because purple is yummy yeah purple's fantastic lisa's passion for popcorn check it out for all your entertainment popcorn needs for all your trashy nbc reality show so moses goes out into the city and he runs into miriam and aaron who were his biological brother and sister and of course aaron's terrified because this is a slave driver yeah you know what if ah did i offend him am i gonna get beaten am i gonna get killed and aaron knows exactly who he is but he's like i'm not gonna expect moses to either recognize me or have or have mercy on me right whereas here's miriam who is exceptionally optimistic and cheerful and spunky and spunky i mean sandra bullock is kind of perfect for this character really good casting um there is a confrontation where she may she makes him face we are your actual family and these hebrews that you've enslaved are your actual people and so moses has major paradigm shift and he goes into the castle and you know and his whole world is spinning but here we get to another major point of division between real life siblings moses cannot undo his paradigm shift where once before they were just cattle the people were just cattle yeah now they're his people and he defends one of them kills a guard flees and ramses tries to stop him from going moses let's talk about that conversation between ramses and moses please as i mean we can do both therapeutic but artistic but there's so much emotion there what are your thoughts goodbye brother i mean there's there's such obvious love between the two brothers you know moses doesn't want to leave but is absolutely reeling after his paradigm shift and you know accidentally killing this guard and ramses is just desperate to keep his brother who is his own you know for ramses i think the pressure of being ramesses the second future pharaoh is enormous right everyone else looks at him as the pharaoh to be yeah and the only person in the world who is his brother is his brother yeah you know he can't get that anywhere else no one else can just be his brother to him yeah he can't have friends he can't have because he's pharaoh and and so he's desperate to keep him around we'll make it right we'll we'll cover it up we'll you know do whatever i am egypt the morning and evening star if i say day is night it will be written and you will be what i say you are i say you are innocent and moses is like it doesn't matter what you say what's true is true and i i look at the scene and i see um something a lot of people try and do which is i love you you're upset so i'm gonna fix it right i'm gonna try and make it go away because i care about you and you don't want me to fix it you don't need me to fix it you just want you want to be heard you want empathy but the fact is well it comes from a good place i know a lot of people who are fixers oh i have done this with my wife so many times right where she needs to be heard and i need to fix it and it nothing works you do have a nail in your head it is not about the nail are you sure because i mean i bet if we got that out of there stop trying to fix it the issue is when people are upset we think that the problem is the problem and so we're going to rush in and try and fix it for them but they feel like we're being condescending like we're not really listening and we don't think they can solve their own problem that we're trying to ride in and save the day most of the time trying to fix it is a good thing it comes from a good place but the right way to do it is to accurately diagnose what needs to be fixed right what the person is telling you is not what you need to fix what needs to be fixed is they are upset they are hurting and by hearing them empathizing and validating them they feel better and you have fixed that problem and then they will very often fix the original issue sure right and so if you're a fixer it's a beautiful thing just redirect it slightly now in ramsey's case ramsay's tried to fix it moses it wasn't happening and he flees he goes into the wilderness and he marries and he becomes a shepherd and he becomes a man of peace and while in the while in the cave he sees the the vision of the burning bush and god tells him go back and free the slaves i will be with you i will give you power take the staff in your hand moses with it you shall do my wonder so here he goes and he's headed back after all these years away and he walks into pharaoh's court and his father is dead or at least his adopted father is dead ramses is now pharaoh and the most heartbreaking moment in the entire film for me is knowing the story in advance when we see them reunite and how happy they are to see each other and watching and going that's not going to last it's going to get real bad guys [Laughter] look at you folks if you're enjoying this which clearly you are obviously you actually want to check out the longer director's extended cut version of this episode here's our director available on our low-cost membership site along with our relationship courses our growth guides all sorts of perks live q and a's or with a therapist watch along parties with with the both of us all sorts of stuff to meet your emotional and relationship needs mental health needs and just give you more entertainment yeah a lot more of him a little bit more of me more feeling good maybe some crying so here's moses and he's saying god says let my people go and ramses realizes a good one and he thinks this one of moses is a joke he's like oh you moses remember that time we knocked the nose off of the sphinx yeah he's so used to big pranks from moses that he's not even mad wow impressive hmm very well moses i'll play along he's not even mad that moses did this in front of everybody because it's just moses it's just moses i'm not even mad that's amazing [Laughter] but here we have a thing that a lot of people struggle with in their relationships not just with siblings but with with friends and what have you is one person has changed and the other person hasn't yeah right we both started on the same page when it came to our faith or our politics or our worldview and i have shifted to something else and even though there's love between us this seems like a bridge we can't cross i know a lot of people who especially sort of in the current political climate in the u.s you know going either direction have have just gone we can't see eye to eye so we can't yeah we i can no longer talk to my parents or that son is dead to me unfriended and i'm not even sorry yeah it's that kind of thing happens which occasionally is merited like if you've done that i'm not saying it was sure but like if there's abuse if there's other i mean like or people whose views are truly despicable like sure i think a lot of people that that happens to they think oh their views are so irredeemably bad it's like well yeah this might just be a perspective thing well and this is a this is a bit more of a there's a bit more of a faith angle because this is a biblical film moses in ramsey's eyes has up and joined some whack job yeah whackadoo colt did you saw burning bush sure buddy and what's so funny to me about this is that ramses thinks that moses's religion is ridiculous but people worshiping me as a god is totally fine completely that makes total sense have you seen me i mean so ramses wants to reconcile but only if moses sees things his way ramesses look what do you see and this is going to be a major wedge in your relationships a greater egypt than that of my father that is not what i see it actually reminds me we'll do captain america civil war sometime but there's a line at the end of civil war where cap sends a letter to tony and he says i wish we agreed on the accords i really do i know you're doing what you believe in and that's all any of us can do that's all any of us should so if you want me if you need me i'm here and i'll be there right that it would be a healthy way for ramses to say moses we're not going to see eye to eye on this right i wish we agreed i really do but i'm your brother and i'm here for you so let's figure out let's figure out a compromise which i don't know if a compromise could be reached in this particular case but in real life stop enslaving people or no i like having slaves not a lot of not a lot of gray area but generally that's not happening in our lives generally we can actually just make room for okay i i don't agree with your choices i respect your right to make them and i respect that they came from a place of intelligence and integrity even if that's not what my intelligence or my integrity guides me to do like but ramses doesn't go that way so of course ramses is now really ticked and he says i'm going to up the workload for the for the hebrew slaves so now the hebrews are all mad at moses who's supposed to be there to deliver them and now he's just up their workload so they're throwing mud at him and aaron is kind of a punk to his brother so moses how does it feel when you get struck to the ground and i love when miriam says doesn't it aaron you shame yourself because right now ramsay's is is starting to hold a grudge against moses and aaron definitely does and then here's miriam who comes to moses in the mud and she has every right to be every reason to hold a grudge and be angry and yeah you abandoned us when you could have helped us and then now you're coming back and you're making things worse yeah yeah what do you see that she does instead why is that so it's she's so forgiving and loving while still holding accountable yeah it's you know you have a responsibility you have to fulfill your responsibility don't be a jerk while you do it you know it's good sistering and to moses credit he is accountable i did not see because i did not wish to see and he and he's like it's not an excuse i i was wrong and that's we do have to meet each other halfway now what happens if you forgive somebody and they don't come halfway they don't take ownership they don't take accountability what that means is you can forgive but you don't have to trust forgiveness means letting go of bitterness and anger and not and not hating somebody but you don't have to be close with people if you can't trust them moses earns her trust by being accountable and he earns her trust by seeing things through and she changes aaron's heart by giving an example and you can be an example in your family of what forgiveness of what extending trust when it's earned of what earning trust you can be that example to your family and people may follow suit or they may not but you can stand on that high ground it's over anakin i have the high ground okay can we talk about uh so then the plagues happen right which is so awesome that instead of doing like 45 minutes of plagues they do one musical number one musical number and we're just gonna get rid of all of them uh and yeah i mean but yeah i mean getting through all of it in a musical number that is a gorgeous piece the all of the every single shot i'm just gonna i'm gonna go off in a little filmmaking soapbox here every single shot in this movie is a painting the backgrounds are gorgeous the animation is fluid and and lovely the way things are cut in the musical sequences is fantastic particularly the plague stuff is good and the one of my favorite bits of filmmaking of all time ever in the movie is the passover sequence yeah the design of that passover sequence visually the sound design the just haunting very ethereal music that's in there yeah is is well or in the password there is no music it's just are you talking well it's it's sound design as music basically ah yeah it's very true it's just it's it's a musical creepy haunting sequence and i love that they took the design basically of the creepy ghosty power of god from raiders of the lost ark yeah very very similar it is it is it's that mixed with the water creature from the abyss what yeah and just made it just terrifying and sad it's very sad but it doesn't feel evil and that's a hard thing to it's coming in to kill people it's sad for everyone involved so moses of course is devastated and he goes and ramsey's had brought this on himself we see earlier that he is so fed up with moses and all this that he's going to he's going to kill the hebrews again like his father did and there shall be a great cry in all of egypt such as never has been or ever will be again and so the plague touches the egyptians instead i think this right into ramsay's own house yeah and takes his son and moses is so the scene where ramses is cradling his son and moses goes in and tries to put his hand on his shoulder and ramsay's just leave me in ramses is broken and you and your people are free to go but he looks at moses with absolute hatred as he leaves yep right i want to talk about where hatred comes from because i don't think we'd explore it enough this is gonna sound weird but go with me on this giddy up i'm curious to see where you're going hatred comes from love okay explain that it seems paradoxical we can only hate people i we can only hate either one people that we first loved because then we have we summon enough attachment and affection that if we feel betrayed then we can summon hatred okay so we either have to love them first or they're a threat or a perceived threat to people that we love right so i may not know you but if you're threatening my kids i'm going to hate you and i'm going to completely bash your face in right or we've been taught by people that we love to hate yeah so if i'm a kid if i'm if i'm a kid and i start out neutral and my family teaches me to hate someone of another race i now hate them but it still came from love it still came from i believe the people i loved they taught me this or i perceive you as a threat to someone that i love and so i hate you right we we learn to hate because we're taught by the people we love to hate or because you're perceived as a threat to people we love or as in the case of moses and ramses i loved you first and because the betrayal runs so deep betrayed me so much that i hate you now yeah so many divorced people some some get along really well and more power to them but some of you divorce people hate each other hate each other because they first loved each other yep if i went on two dates with somebody and it fizzles out i can't muster enough i can't hate that person i don't remember most of those girls names right sorry i'm sure you're lovely and so and so in this case ramses now hates moses i was going i didn't want to be the weak link that my father said i'd be because of moses the kingdom has crumbled he doesn't see this as a humanitarian i have slaves he still sees them he'd never had the paradigm shift moses had moses had my kingdom has crumbled i've lost my labor force i've lost my son and it's moses's fault and very often when miss fortune befalls us we look for someone else to blame it's really ramsey's fault like he could have prevented all of this oh he could have just let the hebrews go at the very beginning and you know figure out a new workforce easy easy peasy lemon squeezy get to the red sea of course miracle parting of the red sea and ramses is chasing them through and and the waters come down and there is something so sad when the egyptian armies are all drowned and the hebrews are safely on the other side it's just ramses can we talk about that moment and and especially how it's framed i mean i would say how it shot except for it wasn't shot shot it's i mean it was composed it's a composition like any other shot but uh you know him alone tiny little speck on a rock in the middle of you know a raging torrent and then moses standing son behind him and yeah and you know the light of god is with him and that's or the light of truth or you know whatever you want to however you want to approach the film or justice or justice or you know any number of ways to look at it it's it's just this you know sad broken small man it's so poetic the way they do it and i love the the sound design on it is ramsay's voice is distant i mean even his voice feels small and broken and there's nothing left you compare that to ramses refused to let moses comfort him but when moses comes out and he's heartbroken because of all the death and destruction and at the start of when you believe when miriam starts to sing to him he actually he faces her and he lets her console him [Music] [Music] many nights we've prayed with no proof anyone could hear and then at the end we juxtapose here's ramsay's calling out for moses and moses says goodbye brother and then he turns to aaron and miriam you can love people and still cut ties with them why can't things be the way they were before moses loves ramses yeah but it's not a healthy relationship it's not it's not a safe relationship because ramsay's needed to do things his way because ramses wouldn't listen he he wouldn't empathize he wouldn't try to try and see things from moses's perspective moses sees things from ramsey's perspective he knows exactly where he's coming from like at the beginning moses is close with ramses and estranged from miriam and aaron and at the at the end they're switched and the reason for that is because miriam and aaron forgive they extend trust moses earns trust he takes accountability they allow one another to comfort one another and they take strength in one another i think all relationships can be saved i don't think they all will be saved no and maybe not all of them can be saved i mean extreme cases of of abuse or just awful things where it's like that bridge is burned but a lot of times relationships can be saved if both people are willing yeah but sometimes that doesn't happen and just because you love somebody doesn't mean you need to have them in your life conversely healing can happen with accountability with forgiveness with earning trust with supporting each other and letting one another bring comfort i know this is quote unquote a bible film but it's really a film for everybody it is it absolutely is it's it's not preachy it's not pretentious it's not you know join our church at the end of the film right it's uh it's just a great story and i've learned an awful lot about how relationships work and how you can repair damaged relationships uh with your family friends siblings just you know be like moses miriam and aaron not uh i like ramsay's i will not be the weak link [Music] if you would like to rent or purchase this film we have a link below you can do that it's on amazon or something uh we also have social media accounts have you heard of those they're at therapy underscore cinema on twitter and instagram we're also r slash cinema therapy on reddit because we're redditers now yay that's the front page of the internet so until next time when moses was in egypt's land let my people go and watch movies and take some singing lessons because pitchy not not great boy they love it

Channel: Cinema Therapy

Views: 280,434

Rating: 4.987083 out of 5

Keywords: cinematherapy, cinema therapy, mental health, counseling, therapy, mental health therapy, Jonathan Decker, Alan Seawright, The Prince of Egypt, Prince of Egypt, Ralph Fiennes, Val Kilmer, Michelle Pfeifer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Stewart, Danny Glover, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Helen Mirren, Egypt, siblings, family, forgiveness

Id: hsNpP5uuiaU

Length: 27min 55sec (1675 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/QeenMagrat]

Half hour episodes are too short!

I love this film and I love this video, it's the human element of the characters that make this film so great.

[u/kimbo3311]

Love the discussion of how hate originates from love, and how we can forgive without trusting or continuing an unhealthy relationship.

[u/rustierrobots]

Happy to see Jonathan and Alan done of my favourites, thank you so much for this guys!

[u/radicalspacecat]

"You can love people and still cut ties with them" is just chefs kiss really. Totally spot on. Sometimes just cutting ties is the cleanest and kindest solution for everyone involved. And you can still love and care for that person too and also be aware that being around them isn't healthy for you at the same time.

[u/DimensionVast9752]

Loved this video! I really needed to hear this message this week. I won't get into what happened, but long-story-short, I love this guy that I was friends with but the relationship wasn't healthy. Therefore the catalyst that happened needed to happen.

Top-notch work, y'all!

[u/raq_shaq_n_benny]

Not that it matters in the grand scheme of these videos, but since they did another religious movie, I am curious. What religious sect(s) do Alan and Jonathan ascribe to? In the Nativity Story they both say they are religious. I am guessing Latter-day Saints (aka Mormons).

[u/Blueandyellowfish]

One of my all time favorites. It's a very helpful approach to apologize/accept the apology without letting some misuse one's trust yet again. Has anyone noticed the God and Moses are voiced by the same actor?

[u/macespadawan87]

One of my favorite movies of all time. So glad they did a video about it. There is so much good psychology stuff in there and there’s no way they could cover it all.

[u/Descocloud]

Imo The best animated religious movie out there. The opening will make me cry every time 😭😭😭