The Man Who Would Be King 4K 1975

It’s not the first time, to put it bluntly, that the heroes of one movie or another have taken it upon themselves to fulfill the Almighty’s mission—and once they’ve done so, have become so full of themselves that everything happening around them begins to seem like nothing less than their own handiwork. Take Sean Connery’s character—a former soldier, now a rogue and adventurer who had amassed untold riches in Kafiristan, which had been his primary objective. Yet at the crucial moment, he was unable to resist the alluring prospect offered by His Majesty the Ruler and, as a result, fell victim to his own promises.

Such is human nature, and there’s nothing to be done about it: the diamonds and rubies so coveted just yesterday turn into mere nothingness in the wake of such events—nothing more than fiction; how can they compare to this opium, whose name is Power? And even if they are the simple-minded Kafiristanis, torn apart by endless wars, who are unable to properly distinguish a messiah from a swindler—the Sovereign’s palaces are too sweet, and the royal crown is as alluring as it is intoxicating.

The Son of Man is weak and powerless to resist such vice, and when events begin to unfold exactly this way and no other, the mind begins to be overcome by doubts. And that joke, which was told by the wretched wanderers about their supposedly divine origin, is no longer destined to remain merely a joke. From now on, the coincidences will indeed become too significant, and the events will take on such a character that what was foretold many years ago by Alexander the Great himself will come to resemble a prophecy come true.

For the one seated on the throne—who was accepted as the King who had come, as the legend dictated, from the West—there may well have been something greater in store than what was stated in the narrative; but the Man—and this is only natural— —wanted everything at once, trampling, without even realizing it, the myth that had been so carefully constructed for him. People are not gods and never will be, and let those who believe otherwise fall into the abyss for all eternity, for, as Kipling said, they are doomed.