He Who Must Die


He Who Must Die by Nikos Kazantzakis. It was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

In a Turkish-occupied Greek village shortly after World War I, villagers put on a Passion Play, with ordinary people taking the roles of Jesus, Peter, Judas, etc. Staging the play leads to them rebelling against their Turkish rulers in a way that mirrors Jesus's story.

Cast

The film received a generally positive response. It was favorably reviewed in Time and The New Yorker, and received awards in communist eastern Europe, and even some liberal Catholics praised it. Bosley Crowther for The New York Times described it as "brutally realistic", praising the "daring sort of candor and relentless driving" in the way it works out the logic of the plot, and he also praised all of the cast.