2017’s The Sin tells a familiar story.
Shortly after creating the world and the first people, God allows Adam (Ayman Nahas) and Eve (Khawlah Hag-Debsy) to live in the Garden of Eden. He only gives them one major rule to follow. They can eat from any tree except for the Tree of Knowledge. They’ve got all the food that they could possibly want, as long as they don’t break that one very simple rule. Eve promptly breaks that rule, taking the advice of a serpent and eating an apple. She then convinces Adam to do the same. When God asks Adam whether or not he ate from the tree, he lies. Then he tries to put all the blame on Eve. God responds by kicking them out of the Garden and cursing them to suffer on Earth.
Adam and Eve wander the Earth, arguing nonstop about who is to blame. Finally, they stop arguing long enough for Eve to get pregnant. In the film, they are depicted as having two sons, Cain (Shredi Jabarin) and Abel (Nahed Bashir). Abel is the gentle sheep herder. Cain is the farmer who sees everything as a competition. When God prefers Abel’s offering of a lamb to Cain’s offering of some nuts and berries, Cain murders his brother and then lies about it.
And, needless to say, everything’s been going downhill ever since.
This is a short film, barely clocking in at 50 minutes. It tells the story faithfully enough, though it leaves out Seth and Adam and Eve’s other children. (Perhaps that’s to avoid discussing the possibility that Cain and Seth ended up marrying their own sisters. I mean, they had to populate the Earth somehow) The main problem with the film is the acting. The actors playing Adam and Eve both come across as being rather goofy and the scenes of them arguing about who is to blame feel more like petulant nagging than an actual discussion about who is to blame for bringing sin into the world. As for Cain and Abel, Abel is kind of wimpy while Cain comes across as being the worst dumbass teenager ever. The scene were Cain start to shout “competition” over and over again made me smile a bit too much, considering that I knew this was going to lead to the first murder.
On the plus side, the film refrains from putting all the blame on Eve. While Eve may have been the first to bite into the forbidden fruit, Adam made his choice and then he not only lied about it but tried to put all the blame on Eve. If anything, this film suggests that Adam was punished less for what he did and more because he refused to accept responsibility for his actions. By that same token, Cain’s murder was bad but his refusal to take responsibility for his actions showed that he was beyond redemption.
As a final note, let me just say that it’s always amazing to me the odd and obscure things that you can find on Tubi if you just spend a few minutes scrolling through your list of recommendations.
Through the Shattered Lens 