Apparently, for many people, it’s popular to watch a Biblical movie during the Easter season. If you’re like me, you’d want to watch “The Ten commandments,” “Ben-Hur,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” or even “The Nativity Story” (as bland as it was). However, there’s those that are dead set on “The Passion of The Christ,” and I wanted to write a review here to give you a little insight:
We’ve all heard the stories about this movie when it first came out- stories about how people ran out of the theaters crying, how there were those who vomited and were gravely affected by it, etc. None of that happened to me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen some of the most stunning, violent and depraved movies in cinema history- most of them having been banned or still banned in many countries. This movie wasn’t so very gory as it was detailed in it’s depiction of Jesus’ suffering. His sacrifice was incredible, and I would agree that people need the reminder. I may even go as far as to say that everyone should watch it once; it gives you a new understanding of what Jesus knew and allowed to happen as well as introducing you to the brutality of Roman crucifixion. That still doesn’t make it a good movie, although whether a movie is “good” or not is more of a subjective topic. Literally about 80% of The Passion of Christ is Jesus being tortured. He gets scourged so violently that the skin is falling off his back. He continues to be mocked, beaten, then crucified with the occasional pan to Miriam and Mary Magdalene to make sure that the audience can witness their incessant weeping.
It was so ridiculously excessive that, at one point, I almost wanted to turn the movie off half way through. I’m curious as to why Jesus’ suffering and cruel ministration was given so much attention, but miracles and the portrayal of his love for us was only treated as an afterthought. I really wish they’d spent more time showing his huge capacity to love and WHY his sacrifice was so momentous and important.
Thousands (perhaps millions) of people have been tortured much worst and for a longer period before and since his death, but it’s the spiritual nature and not the physical that makes it heartbreaking. This movie seems to want people to forget about that, and instead clench their seats, cry and cover their mouths in an attempt to FORCE them to respond emotionally from the prolonged, excessive, explicitly barbaric and brutal nature of the film. I didn’t cry or clench my seat, but I did pull it out of the DVD player the very second it was over and put it back on my shelf with no intention to watch it again. The Passion of the Christ is almost completely reliant on brutality, so once you get over that, you’ll find that it isn’t much of a movie at all. I’ve seen quite a large amount and variety of “brutal” films, so I immediately found the violence (not the violence itself, but the AMOUNT of it) boring and offensive considering the story.
A little irrelevant, and I know this is just nitpicking, but one thing that irritated me was at the beginning of the movie, Satan appeared to be some kind of effeminate tranny instead of the breathtakingly beautiful once-angel that he is said to be in the Bible… Odd. The one good thing I would say about the movie is that the Aramaic and Hebrew was incredibly lovely; a little Italian-sounding too, but that’s probably because half of the actors are Italian. Aside from that, I don’t regret watching it, but I don’t care for seeing it again.
