"Last Days in the Desert" Director Rodrigo García is admittedly not a religious man, and that is the reason why he never dreamt he would ever direct a film based on the life and trials of Jesus Christ.
"I don't know what organ of my body this film came from," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I kept asking myself, 'What are you doing? A movie about Jesus?' But I couldn't get it out of my head."
García originally envisioned making a film about fathers and sons. He then depicted a family whom Jesus (who goes by the name Yeshua) meets in the desert. As the family takes Him in, Yeshua sees a sick mother, a strict and headstrong father, and their teenage son longing to break free from his father's grip.
Satan then appears and challenges Yeshua to fix the family's problems, since the family's personal struggles seem to mirror the ones Yeshua shares with His own silent Father.
"Yeshua needed to free this boy because he could not free himself," García explained. "Both Yeshua and the boy are trying to find their destiny from under a powerful father."
García, who is the son of bestselling Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, can relate well to the film's father and son dynamics because of the relationship he had with his own father. He said it was difficult for him to carve out a name for himself without riding on the success of his father's works.
However, García still appreciates the gift and wisdom his father imparted on his books.
"My favourite thing my father wrote or said is in 'Love in the Time of Cholera': 'Nobody teaches life anything.' I love that. Life trumps all. Reality is always better, bigger, more astonishing than anything. By comparison, 'Life imitates art' is foolish. Life imitates nothing. Life rules supreme," he said.
