Helped by massive hype and controversy, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ stormed US box offices and is currently filling movie theatres even across secularised Europe. Obviously, the movie finds a large audience around the world. When I watched it, I found an unusual audience for a R rated movie (here in Norway, 15 years): an extraordinary number of young people with the special holier-than-thou look they must be practicing a lot in churches.
However, make no mistake about it: this is a good movie, maybe even a great movie, despite a number of weaknesses. I sincerely cannot understand the local critics that gave it a near-unanimous thumbs down. I have to conclude this was a result of anti-Christian bias and general herd mentality among journalists generally.
The film tells the story we know from the gospels. It begins with Jesus praying in Gethsemane before being betrayed by Judas and caught by the temple guard, and it ends when he dies on the cross about twelve hours later (there is also a very brief post-resurrection epilogue).
The big headline-grabbing story about this movie is the intense violence. And you have to be very tough indeed to not cringe and look away during some of the more extreme torture scenes. Jesus, very well played by James Caviezel, goes through a period of almost undescribable suffering when he is tortured by a group of sadistic Roman soldiers. It is hard to believe anyone could have survived the extreme whipping; the brutal torture instruments removed almost all the skin from Jesus' body and the ground was soaked in his blood..
Then follows a long, tortured (no pun intended) scene where Jesus is carrying his cross to Golgata, after a while aided by a reluctant Simon of Cyrene (eminently played by the Austrian actor Jarreth J. Merz; I doubt any of us ever heard about him before but that may well change). This section of the movie could be successfully edited a bit more heavily, in my opinion.
Considering Mel Gibson is Catholic, more so than the pope, it is no surprise that Mary plays an important role in this movie. And this is where Passion shines, in my opinion. If Jesus' intense suffering does not persuade you that he was a real man, the loving relationship between mother and son surely will. Perhaps the best scene of the movie is the crosscutting between Jesus falling while forced to carry his cross and a scene from his childhood where he falls in the street and his mom comes rushing to help him. "I am here," she says to the little boy Jesus, and you can just see how much it pains Mary to know that now, when her son is suffering almost beyond imagination, she is in no position to save him, to raise him up and tell him that everything will be fine. Maia Morgenstern is a well-known Jewish actress in Romania, her interpretation of Mary is very powerful.
When this movie still dissappointed me in many ways, it was due to some unfortunate choices by Mel Gibson. First, the devil has no place in the gospel passion, and should have been excluded from this movie. I realise that he wanted to avoid making Satan look like a majestic figure, as he so often does on film, but choosing a woman with a weird voiceover for the part, looking like a ghoulish androgynous cancer patient, only detracted from what was otherwise a good movie. And what's the story about the midget baby Satan was carrying in one scene? Sheesh! The taunting children, occasionally morphed into satanic ghoulish faces to haunt Judas was also a stupid effect. It didn't work in The Devil's Advocate, and it was even worse here. Again, Gibson went beyond what was written, and it damaged the film. Gibson also gave in to temptation when he had a raven instantly punish the mocking, non-believing crininal who was crucified alongside Jesus, a scene that was totally unnecessary and really detracted from the story. Finally, I found the scene where Mary was wiping up Jesus' blood pretty pointless and absurd.
It is obvious that Gibson intentonally dropped historicity to recreate classical Passion plays when he had Jesus absurdly carry an entire cross, not only the crossbeam like the other crucifiction victims. Perhaps understandably, Gibson didn't want to sacrifice the well-known and powerful image of Jesus carrying an entire cross to be historically accurate.
I was more astonished that the dialogue between the Jews and the Romans were in Latin. Surely, this is wrong. It is absolutely possible, but not certain, that the Roman soldiers spoke Latin between themselves. The universal language of the Roman empire, especially the eastern part, was Greek (common Greek or koine). The conversations between Pilate and Jesus, and Pilate and the priests, should definately have been in Greek. It is probably true, however, that the common language in Palestine at the time was Arameic, with Hebrew being reduced to a religious and liturgic function. This language is today only spoken in some villages in Lebanon, and the people there are reportedly excited to hear it spoken in a major film for the first time.
Is The Passion of the Christ anti-Semitic? Short answer: no. Long answer: Still no. Mel Gibson did make one concession to the critics, though. When Pilate washes his hands and says he is innocent in Jesus' blood, the high priest infamously replies "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" (Mt 27:25 attributes it to "all the people"). In this movie, the subtitles simply omit the phrase, so few viewers will catch it even though the high priest actually utters it. There is also a scene just before Jesus is whipped where the soldiers appear to be mocking Jesus where the subtitles were absent; I'd like to know what was being said.
When Judas was picking up the 30 pieces of silver from the ground, greedily, there was maybe an echo of the greedy Jew stereotype. Then again, Jesus and his disciples, all the heroes in the story, were Jews too! And all the negative portrayals of the priests and elders is nullified, in my opinion, in the extremely brutal and thuggish behaviour of the Roman soldiers. If there are some people you want to smack at the end of the movie, it is them. I doubt, though, Italians will take general offense.
The movie is preachy. Gibson breaks off the violence from time to time, looking back to a healthier Jesus preaching about love and goodness. No doubt a big hit with the Christian audience, and a welcome break from the blood and gore maybe, but it didn't do the film's storytelling any favours. Theologically, the point is obviously to show how great Jesus' sacrifice was by showing how much he suffered. In reality, thousands of people went through similar brutal executions during the Roman era, and millions more have gone through horrible suffering for as long or much longer than Jesus. He wasn't that special, even if we assume his brutal execution is historical..The film peachers an emotional gospel, not an intellectually satisfying one.
The other weaknesses in the story are not the fault of Mel Gibson. The gospels pretty absurdly portray Pilate as a weak man desperate to avoid conflict with the Jewish leaders. In reality, he was a brutal despot who would have sent his legionnaires in for the kill for half the provocations we see the priests and the mob get away with here. For a Roman commander, it would have been disastrous to show himself as weak and willing to give in to pressure the way Pilate did. This description was a rather obvious attempt by the gospel writers to blame their religious opponents for Jesus' death, instead of the Roman authorities.
Did I see stirrups on the horses the Romans were riding? I am not certain, but if I did, it is an anachronism. Stirrups were not invented for another five centuries or so. And it's rather stupid having Jesus deliver the sermon on the mount from a hill top. Nobody would have heard him. In pre-microphone days people knew that when you were speaking to a crowd, you placed yourself at the bottom of the hill with the audience above you..
Serious criticism and nitpicks aside, Gibson shows he is a master of storytelling. Even as an atheist, I recognise the power of many religious legends. The gospels are simply good storytelling, and they deserve a good movie. The Passion of the Christ delivers, with some exceptions as noted above. The horrible suffering, the acting, the costumes, the music and the scenery give this movie an authenticity as a historical drama that is second to none. You will probably not really enjoy seeing this movie, but you will be glad that you did, even if you realise that 'the most powerful story ever told' is, to a significant degree, fiction. If it persuades some people to become Christians instead of criminals, some former terrorists to confess and change their ways, I guess we can live with their preachy behaviour and holier-than-thou attitude.
