THe pAssion

I dropped the ball by not posting earlier on the Passion of the Christ, which I saw last night at midnight. Chuck already got on my case for not blogging about it. I have not read any reviews or analysis of the film, but I will after I write my own.

Regarding the film - it is all about Jesus' suffering, mostly physical. I turned away several times from particularly brutal scenes. It is one of the goriest, nastiest, violent films I've seen. This violence isn't cartoony a la Kill Bill, but meant to feel gruesomely authentic. The entire movie is subtitled because the actors speak in Aramaic and Latin, and I think, Hebrew, which I was quite an accomplishment. I enjoyed the language in the film, it gave a sense of atmosphere and time period and how often do you get to hear people speaking Latin or Aramaic? That's the kind of thing a movie can offer. And me, not a cunning linguist, was able to tell the difference - by the combination of sound and who was speaking.

Cinematography was brilliant at moments. The beginning scenes especially, in a blue hazy night. Tons and I mean tons, of close ups, and slow, dramatic motion.

Regarding the alleged anti-semitism - I didn't find it particularly offensive. Everyone is guilty in this film, the Romans, his disciples, and the Jews. The Jews were costumed in a funny way, wearing large black robes and carrying long canes, heads covered. They pressure the Roman leader into cruficying Jesus, so one might say they were the worst group in the movie...Judas being the worst human and well, satan being the arch antagonist. But again, everyone is bad, so it's a bit of a stretch.

In the end, I don't have anything brilliant or interesting to say about this film. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. It reflects a particularly flagellalistic and conservative retelling of Jesus' suffering. The point of this story is to emphasize the martyr aspect of Jesus', nothing new, nothing complicated.

The most interesting part of the Passion of the Christ experience is the marking and buzz, showing it to Church groups, etc, trying to get it to the pope, etc, instead of focusing on the critics.

The New Yorker review. Obviously more in-depth and insightful than my take...but all this business about historical accurracy is hogwash. It's a MOVIE. I love James Ellroy books, Oliver Stone movies, and historical truth ain't got nothing to do with it. Same goes here....and no, it's not different because it comes from the religious right as opposed to Oliver Stone. An interesting note mentioned in the New Yorker article is the string of torturous scenes associated with Mel Gibson either acting, directing, or both. Clearly, Passion has the strongest, but remember the end of Braveheart? How about Lethal Weapon I and II, each feature scene's of Mel being tortured, electroshock treatment, and being bound in chains and dropped into the ocean whereby he escapes by dislocating his own shoulder. Something's going here (with Mel and not some cult of death like the Palestinians, which Denby seems to suggest) whereby he identifies strongly with extreme physical suffering at the hands of evil men.

And again regarding the anti-semitism...I'm not really buying it. If a film depicts the US government as corrupt, is it anti-American? Are the Soprano's anti-Italian? Is any antagonist anti-something? Agreed, the Jews are bad in this film, but what about the brutal Roman's? I dunno, there's so much real anti-semitism out there, I don't think we need to go around branding borderline cases...buy hey, what do I know? Nick LaSalle agrees, but on another front - all the characters, less bad to real bad, other than the Roman's are Jewish. Read the full link.

I grow less and less interested in Roger Ebert, but here's his review. I agree with the last part, this should be NC-17.