The Miracle Maker

From the company behind the successful animated TV Shakespeare, Chaucer and Old Testament series, this is an animated life of Christ (voiced by Fiennes), according to Luke, but told mainly from the point of view of Tamar, a sick 12-year-old Pharisee (Callard). On a trip to the doctor in Sepphoris, she witnesses the saving of Mary Magdalen and then follows the journey to the Crucifixion. A Welsh/Russian co-production, most of its 3-D animated, clay headed 'puppets' came from the Moscow team, while the pastel-crayon 'miracles' and flashbacks are from the Cartwn Cymru studio. The films eschews CGI techniques, producing an almost homely, handcrafted feel. The screenplay is a combination of simplicity and detail, its plenitude of characters and groupings doing justice to the religious, racial and social context. Christ is much the modest artisan carpenter, an Everyman lacking the dynamism and wrath of, say, Pasolini's Evangelist. Here, miracles are made manifest by dozens of minuscule rubber fish and everyone moves with the underwater slowness of entranced T'ai-chi practitioners. Strange - and strangely compelling.