"Passion of Christ" review

You don’t often hear from me on this blog. Most often, I’m just the one who posts the writings of Rev. Trudy Mackay. Her preferred kind of writing right now is the short form; those mini-lessons, bits and pieces you see here, and which have become the standard, mainly, for the God Blog. Her contributions always carry her initials, so you know it’s her and not someone else.

She’s asked me to write our “official” review on Mel Gibson’s the Passion of Christ. My bailiwick has been more in the area of magazine articles and such, and I’ve done reviews of TV, film, and books in the past. This is what you’ll find below. I hope you like it, and will share the link with your friends.

Trudy W. Schuett

I have to admit I haven’t seen a movie at a theater in a long time, five or ten years, maybe. My husband and I avoid first-run movies because of the cost, and the fact that at just five feet tall, it’s left to chance as to whether I’ll be able to see the movie anyway. There’s always a tall person who wants to sit directly in front of me, no matter how many times we change seats, and often the sound volume is excruciatingly high. So we usually wait for the video. There hasn’t been much in film lately anyway, that drew us away from our living room, with its guaranteed clear view of the screen, and the option to simply hit the “off” button and go do something else.

I wasn’t all that sure I even wanted to try this one, but Good Trudy was buying the tickets, and how often does anyone say no to their minister? ;>)

I thought from other reviews I’d read, that it was possibly going to be unnecessarily violent, or anti-Semitic, or a long, boring exercise in showing off for Mel Gibson. It’s a good thing I went, because this is a film that needs to be seen. Whether you’re a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or NewAge crystal cruncher, it is well worth your time and money to see this film. Agnostics could have some interesting ideas to mull over, and even atheists can have a good time critiquing the details.

After we were seated, my techno geek side kicked in. We were fortunate to see it in a brand-new theater that organizes its seating in such a way as to give most of the house an unobstructed view. It closely duplicated the home viewing experience, but with a huge screen. There was a good sound system, and I noticed an usher doing a discreet sound check as the film began.

It takes a minute after the abrupt beginning to realize that yes, it’s true, it is subtitled, with characters speaking Aramaic or Latin. The subtitles become almost unobtrusive, because they’re done in a way that only translates the parts of the dialogue necessary to get the meaning across. This draws the audience into the film in a way that other kinds of subtitling or captioning cannot do.

Once you’re fully into the story, if you’re paying attention, you realize that’s it not about slamming the Jews or Romans or anybody in general. Certain individuals took specific, known roles in this scenario. There were some good guys, some bad guys, and all wearing different costumes according to their place in the society of the time. In one way, it could be seen as an anatomy of hate.

This movie is about the death of Christ, and how that came to be. Of course it is violent; this is the way it all came about. Without the violence and the depiction of human hate unleashed, there would be no need to retell the story. The movie comes at a time of unprecedented human anguish, when sometimes both men and women are at risk of violence in their own homes, and people are at risk on an international basis from terrorist attacks. The few brief quotes from well-known Scripture, that Jesus is known to have said, can reach anyone, not only devout Christians. If only we could love each other, enemies and friends alike…

There was an unusual audience in this theatre. No children refusing to be silenced; no adults chatting aimlessly about what that guy said or what was going to happen next. Some were openly weeping, but most were just silent, dealing with their own reactions in their own ways.

Not a single soul in this movie house was left unaffected. There was a noticeable moment of silence when the story ended and the credits began. Everyone filed out much more quietly than they’d usually do.

I went upstairs to the mezzanine with Good Trudy to find the Ladies’ room afterward. I waited outside, so I could look around. There was a man leaning on the balustrade, apparently looking down at the people in the lobby. His wife came out of the Ladies’, and he went to meet her. As I moved over to the spot where he’d been standing, I noticed the railing was wet. This man had been allowing his own tears to fall, in a place where he hoped not to be noticed.

Those who want their religion sanitized will most certainly be disappointed by this film. It is about the terrible things people will do to other human beings in the name of religion, and how infectious hate can become. Religion is about humanity, and culture, and neither of those things are always clean or pretty.

As I headed toward home, I stopped off at the grocery store. Because it’s Lent and this is Yuma, AZ, right at the Mexican border, there was a big display in the store of big framed prints of Jesus Christ being lifted up on the Cross by several half-naked men. For some inexplicable reason, there were a few drops of blood dripping from a single wound on Christ’s forehead. Otherwise, everyone appeared healthy and charming. Coming from where I had, it looked like some weird outdoor picnic.

The Passion of Christ is more accurately done than any previous attempt. It is nothing more or less than what it claims to be. The fact there’s so much controversy surrounding this film only shows that a lot of people are paying attention. That’s always a good thing.

Comments

[heavycritic]

As far as I am concerned, Mel took the idea of the movie from a previous one "The Last Temptation of Christ" starring Dafoe (based on the book of Kazantzakis, author from Crete, Greece, the same author of Zorba the Greek)

[Charles Shamwell]

I normally don't read review posts, let alone post my ideas on them. However, I've never been as compelled by a movie before now. I'm 20 years old and in the Marine Corps stationed over in Okinawa, Japan. A few days ago I had the priveledge to view "The Passion of Christ" in our shabby little movie theatre. Marines aren't know for sitting still or quiet or behaving during cinemas, but if you could have been there you would have been just as caught up as they were. It was like the entire theater was a painting where only the silver screen moved and tears of the audience seemed to seap out of the canvas. I've never seen so many Marines cry or take such an interest in a story other than war. The movie was just that powerful. I don't know how close it was to actual scriptural context, and I don't care. It did what it was supposed to do in me. It showed me that life is bigger than myself; bigger than the goals and asperations I have for my life, but more so the goals and desires of God for my life, something I think we all lose track of. This is a movie I'll never forget and don't think I could ever see again. The only comfort I have in a world filled with war and the same type of hate and discontentment that existed 2000 years and still today, is that regardless of my trangressions, my faith will unite me with my Saviour, my Messiah, my Emmanuel, my Christ.

[Heidi]

I'm 16 year old living in Australia. I go to a Catholic school and have done fro my whole life!!! I choose to do an oral presentation on The Passion of the CHrist because it moved my so much!!! At this point of time, it is not finished but i would still like to post my first draft. SO here goes:
The Passion of the Christ is Not anti-Semitic and unnecessarily violent!

“I have never sat in the presence of a religious film with anything like the power of The Passion …For the first time, I felt really inside Christ’s sufferings, enduring with him, or more exactly enduring like those who loved him … I now knew, as never before, the duration of his excruciating pain. Unlike a painting, cinema gives us the pain filled passage of time. “Michael Novak

There's nothing to laugh about in "The Passion of Christ." The pain and suffering feels real. It is real. This film focuses on Christ’s last 12 hours, because its purpose is to make real his sufferings and what he did for mankind.
What makes "The Passion" so graphic isn't the actual violence that we see but the prolonged suffering that Jesus endures. This is the guy who tells his followers to love your enemy. At the point in the film where he was being brutally whipped and nailed the cross, Jesus was asking his Father for their forgiveness. "They don't know," he cried out. "They don't know."
It's not hard to understand why this film makes some people uncomfortable, but this film is no more anti-Semitic than the Gospel accounts of The Passion.
If you take the time to read Isaiah 52:13-53: you will find a very detailed accounted of what happened
"…beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person…wounded and crushed…beaten…whipped…oppressed and treated harshly…led as a lamb to the slaughter…
Most people who called the film anti-Semitic had decided that before they had even seen it; and those who maintain that are deliberately ignoring its message. The film clearly makes the point that Christ died because of the sins of all men, not because of the evil of a particular race of people. In the film there are Jews who are all for Christ's death as well as Jews who follow Him to the end and tenderly take him from the cross.
Father Di Noia said that “Looking at The Passion strictly from a dramatic point of view, what happens in the film is that each of the main characters contributes in some ways to Jesus fate: Judas betrays him; The Sanhedrin accuses him; the disciples abandon him; peter denies knowing him; herod toys with him; Pilate allows him to be condemned; the crowd mocks him; the roman soldiers scourge, brutalize and finally crucify him … perhaps only Mary is blameless”

The Passion of the Christ is not anti –Semitic, there is an even blame for all, when the guards whipped him and his blood sprayed on all around, it symbolized how his blood was on all, and how everyone played a part in his fate.

when i finish, if i remember i will be back to show you how it ended.