Revisiting "The Prince of Egypt"

DreamWorks' second animated feature explores the tragic human element at the heart of the Exodus story.

Those of us who grew up in the 1990s were lucky in many ways. The internet was still in its infancy (and thus there was no social media), the economy was good, and the future, for a lot of people, looked pretty good. It was also a golden age for animation. This was when the Disney Renaissance was in full swing, with the studio cranking out hit after hit on an almost-yearly basis. At the same time as Disney was asserting its dominance, a little studio called DreamWorks decided to try to get into the game, as well. The studio’s first film was Antz, and while it did decently, it was overshadowed by Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. Far more successful was The Prince of Egypt, an animated telling of the Exodus story. Though some at the time dismissed it as second-rate Disney, the truth is that there is an emotional resonance and depth to both the film’s story and its visuality that has, oddly enough, withstood the test of time.

If you haven’t seen it, it is essentially an animated version of The Ten Commandments, with some notable differences. Among other things, it excises the love triangle between Nefertiri, Rameses, and Moses that was such a central part of DeMille’s film in favor of focusing exclusively on the strong fraternal bond between the two men, one which is the firstborn son and heir of Pharaoh Seti and the other of whom is a Hebrew baby discovered by the pharaoh’s wife and raised in the palace. The two men begin as brothers and the best of friends, but once Moses finds out the truth about his ancestry their bond is shaken, and it is finally broken when the younger brother goes into exile, only to return as the voice of his God, determined to free his people from the Egyptian yoke. 

Rameses is a far more sensitive and vulnerable figure than he is usually depicted. Almost from the beginning of the film we’re led to see the extent to which he labors under the burden of his father’s heavy expectations, as well as that of the many pharaohs before him. Unlike Moses who, as the second born, had (at first) the leisure to do as he pleases, Rameses has duties to perform. Everything he does must both honor his father and try to surpass him, though his efforts to do so seem doomed to always remain incomplete, a burden which threatens to crush him. In one notable scene, for example, we see Rameses’ profile juxtaposed to the statue of his father and his own monument, a potent reminder of the weight of both the history and the present. 

Indeed, his desperate desire to both uphold his father’s legacy and surpass it is a key part of his own tragic fall once Moses returns from his exile as the liberator of the Israelites. Rameses simply can’t wrap his head around the idea that his younger brother has now become something significant, something far greater than even he, in all his majesty and power, can ever aspire to. Nevertheless, it’s also clear how much the two men still love one another, and the film’s visual design–though more stylized and angular than one would see in a Disney film–excels at capturing their emotions. 

As the plagues continue to rain down on Egypt, we see the toll this takes on the once indestructible bond which once existed between the two men. This reaches its apogee, of course, when God sends down the Angel of Death to strike down all of the firstborn of Egypt…including Rameses’ young son. The sight of the mighty pharaoh cradling the shrouded form of his dead child is as wrenching as anything I’ve ever seen in an animated film, made all the more so by the obvious anguish Moses himself feels at having been the instrument of his brother’s misery. 

For make no mistake: Moses suffers a great deal of emotional torment at what he is forced to bring upon the people among whom he once lived and whom he once called family. There’s a particularly wrenching moment when Moses, entering the palace that was once his home, sees the shattered remnants of the statues that once depicted the royal family: Seti, Tuya, Rameses…and Moses himself. Whereas once they were visual representations of their power and wholeness, now they are but another reminder of how much has been sacrificed on the altar of his service to God and the liberation of his people. This isn’t to say that the film isn’t still very firmly on the Hebrews’ side, for it is. Still, it wants us to understand this entire saga as one of deeply human and wrenchingly tragic dimensions. 

In the end, of course, Moses succeeds in leading his people from their enslavement, and as the Egyptians charge after them across the dry land of the Red Sea, God brings the waters crashing down, only sparing Rameses. As Moses and his people walk away into the future, he continues to scream Moses’ name, his hoarse cries slowly fading into the distance. Given the extent to which the film has shown how profound the bond is between Rameses and Moses, this bit of sound design reminds us of how much he has had to give up, how even a moment of triumph and victory has only come at a great cost, one measured not only in Egyptian bodies now floating lifeless on the waters of the Red Sea but also in the permanent parting of two brothers. Yes, there is triumph, as the Israelites are at last able to pursue their dream of freedom in the Promised Land, but there is sadness, and maybe even a bit of regret, too. Moses is, after all, only human, for all that he is now the mouthpiece of God. 

The Exodus story has, of course, been told many, many times over the millennia, so much so that it can come to seem a bit ossified. It’s to this film’s credit that it was able to do something new and fascinating and yes, even heartbreaking, with a story that had been so well-trod before. Even if, like me, you’re not particularly religious or faith-oriented–though I grew up that way–there is still so much to enjoy about this film. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s precisely its ability to thread the needle between traditional hagiography and true human drama that is the key to its success.  As many have remarked, it was in some ways a high-water mark for DreamWorks and also a path not taken. Thankfully, though, the film lives on, a testament to the remarkable heights to which animation can aspire.