THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)  **

Reviewed 2/26/04

At a time when the United States is more divided than ever between the blue and red states under the presidency of George W. Bush, the culture wars are more heated than ever. At the heart of some of these fights is a devotion or lack thereof to certain religious principles – the public display of the Ten Commandments in government buildings, the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, government funding of faith-based social work, vouchers for religious schools, abortion, and gay marriage. In art and entertainment, the Right decries “The Reagans” miniseries while the Left makes accusations of anti-Semitism over Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, the most controversial religious-themed movie since Kevin Smith’s Dogma. Unlike “The Reagans,” Passion did not fall prey to self-censorship by CBS, and whether that’s an early signifier of where greater political power currently lies will be clearer in November of this election year. Mel Gibson’s father being a Holocaust denier only further fans the flames.

Clearly, responses to The Passion of the Christ will largely depend on one’s perspective approaching the movie. Gibson depends heavily on prior knowledge of The Gospels for viewers to orient themselves to the material. The movie covers the last twelve grueling hours of Jesus’ life with occasional flashbacks to prior events such as the Last Supper and the Sermon on the Mount. One of Gibson’s strangest and most daring choices was to have the cast speak in Aramaic and Latin and subtitle the movie. Though the stated purpose was that of authenticity, some scholars have pointed out that the Jews in that place and time would have actually spoken Greek and were not adorned with long hair as Jesus is now traditionally depicted.

Unlike the ridiculous Braveheart, Mel Gibson has indeed made a powerful film with The Passion. That is in spite of, not because of his writing and direction. Gibson is not the most skilled director, excessively relying on close-ups for the kind of power more articulate directors would find too manipulative and easy. Gibson also uses slow motion to the point of diminishing returns. Every single physical action of note in the movie suddenly moves like the line to renew your driver’s license – the silver coins tossed to Judas, Judas’ kiss, every time Jesus (Jim Caviezel, The Thin Red Line) hits the ground and he falls down more often than a kid learning to ride a bike.

Some of Gibson’s narrative choices too are suspect like making King Herod a flaming homosexual and Satan (Rosalinda Celentano) an androgynous 70s David Bowie lookalike. Children appear as little horror movie monsters as if this were The Exorcist. Gibson squanders a potentially powerful moment involving a tear drop from God by inducing an over-the-top earthquake and Satan freaking out. Monica Bellucci (Malèna, The Matrix Reloaded) looks out of place, remaining strikingly beautiful even in modest makeup mode, but when has Mary Magdalen ever been a former supermodel? Then there are the Roman soldiers accompanying Jesus bearing the cross. They mug like they took acting lessons from professional wrestlers. Eventually, the movie becomes repetitive: three teary-eyed onlookers – mother Mary (Maia Morgenstern, Ulysses’ Gaze), Mary Magdalen, and John (Hristo Jivkov) – peer on ever helplessly, the devil lurks and sneers in the background, and the soldiers relentlessly abuse Jesus. Gibson puts this on repeat play. 

Nonetheless, there is great power in the film and it comes from Gibson’s rapt attention to capturing every ounce of brutality being doled out on Jesus’ flesh. Roman soldiers give Jesus over thirty lashes with canes and follows it up with thirty more lashes with spiked cat-o’nine-tails. Gibson’s camera looms over Jesus’ tearing skin and splattering blood. When the Roman floggers are done, they are drenched in crimson, Jesus looks like a half-skinned animal, and the ground looks like a demented Jackson Pollock painting. Half of the movie is devoted to Jesus’ physical torture, which Gibson depicts as viscerally as possible. The power that the film gains from this however should not be equated with quality. It does not take much skill to shock, only the will. The Passion is all emotion, no intellect, almost a guilt trip for conversion. If He did this for us, what will you do for Him? Gibson, who has shown his martyr complex with the ending of Braveheart, seems to find the violence simultaneously reviling and glorifying in a sadomasochistic manner. The little snippets of Jesus’ message that occur in flashback are practically forgotten in the face of the physical agony on display.

This leads to one issue that has strangely not come up, which is how this movie merited an R-rating. One of the most violent movies ever made, nearly rivaling the likes of Salo, 120 Days of Sodom and Cannibal Holocaust, The Passion of the Christ seemingly got a free pass from the MPAA while Bernardo Bertolucci’s recent film, The Dreamers, not near pornographic explicitness in its sex scenes, earned an NC-17. Apparently, a movie simply can’t be rated NC-17 for violence, just another symptom of the double standard violence has with sex in the puritanical U.S.

So is The Passion of the Christ anti-Semitic?  The answer is no, at least not in the usual sense. It makes no accusations against the Jewish people as a whole, only specific Jews. Of course, Jesus and his followers themselves were Jews, and when high priest Caiphas (Mattia Sbragia, Heaven) accuses Jesus of blasphemy, another Jewish council member steps up to defend this supposed “King of the Jews” before being ushered away. Still, Gibson gives plenty of ammunition to anti-Semites looking for it by all but absolving Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov, The Grey Zone) of his role. Pilate’s wife, Claudia (Claudia Gerini), pleads for Jesus’ life saying he is holy, and Pilate, skeptical of Caiphas’ charges, does everything in his power to save Jesus from the high priest’s wrath. Giving a crowd of bloodthirsty Jews the choice between freeing notorious murderer Barabbas and Jesus, Pilate is horrified when the crowd chooses Barabbas while chanting for Jesus’ crucifixion. Even after Jesus’ body is shredded within an inch of his life, something Pilate hopes will satisfy Caiphas and his people, the Jews still cry for his crucifixion. Finally, Jesus pardons Pilate with “It is he who delivered me to you who has the greater sin,” referring to Caiphas. Pilate’s second-in-command, Abenader (Fabio Sartor, The Luzhin Defence), also shows Jesus compassion in scolding his torturers for going too far. Their Roman underlings however gleefully apply their savagery to Jesus at every opportunity, something Gibson can’t seem to get enough of.