The Passion of the Christ

Last Wednesday Mel Gibson's much expected and controversial film, The Passion of the Christ, was shown in thousands of cinemas in the United States and Canada. The film has been the object of controversy for several months. As a consequence, a lot of interest was created. A search on the Internet yields more than 670,000 references to the film.

At one point the Pope was brought into the controversy. Journalists said that people in important places at the Vatican said that when the Pope saw an unfinished version of the film he said: "It is as it was."

Later the Vatican denied the story, though the journalists stuck to their guns and produced e-mails sent from Vatican computers to prove their point.

Now that the film has been released, it was met by both highly positive and highly negative comments from film critics. Slate's David Edelstein in a review says: "This is a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie - The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre - that thinks it's an act of faith."

The Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert, in giving the film his highest rating of four stars, said: "I was moved by the depth of feeling, by the skill of the actors and technicians, by their desire to see this project through no matter what," though he added: "This is the most violent film I have ever seen."

On the other hand, Phil Kloer, of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, said: "This is a movie so singular, so intense, so overwhelming that it simply has to be experienced."

The violent aspects of the films were noted also by the Office for Film and Broadcasting of the US Catholic Bishops. They said that "due to gory scenes of torture and crucifixion, a suicide and some frightening images" it was awarded the classification of A-III or adults.

We do not know what is the classification that will be given by the relevant office of the Church in Malta; though state censors were quite generous in the certificate they awarded.

In a statement, the Communications Service of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said: "The CCCB does not have an official position regarding The Passion of the Christ. This film is the work of an artist, and it reflects his vision and beliefs about the Passion of Christ."

The Office of the US Bishops, on the other hand, released a long appraisal of the film. We produce extracts to help our readers form an opinion.

"The Passion of the Christ is an uncompromising interpretive dramatisation of the final 12 hours of Jesus' earthly life. Co-writer, producer and director Mel Gibson has undoubtedly created one of the most anticipated and controversial films of recent times.

"The Passion is a deeply personal work of devotional art - a moving Stations of the Cross, so to speak.

"However, by choosing to narrow his focus almost exclusively to Christ's Passion, Gibson has, perhaps, muted Christ's teachings, making it difficult for viewers unfamiliar with the New Testament and the era's historical milieu to contextualise the circumstances leading up to Jesus' arrest.

"And though, for Christians, the Passion is the central event in the history of salvation, the 'how' of Christ's death is lingered on at the expense of the 'why'?

"The film employs a visceral, undiluted realism in its retelling of the passion, eschewing Sunday School delicacy in favour of in-your-face rawness that is much too intense for children.

"That notwithstanding, the movie is an artistic achievement in terms of its textured cinematography, haunting atmospherics, lyrical editing, detailed production design and soulful score."

The US Catholic office describes the film's use of flashbacks to Christ's public ministry and home life in Nazareth with his mother in Nazareth as "a welcome respite from the near incessant bloodletting" and a good way of conveying Jesus's core message of God's boundless love for humanity, a love that does not spare his son death on the cross so that we might have eternal life.

One of the gravest accusations against the film is that it is anti-Semitic. The US Catholic office does not hold this accusation, commenting that "the Jewish people are at no time blamed collectively for Jesus' death; rather Christ himself freely embraces his destiny, stating clearly: "No one takes it (my life) from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John 10: 18).

By extension, Gibson's film suggests that all humanity shares culpability for the crucifixion, a theological stance established by the film's opening quotation from the prophet Isaiah, which explains that Christ was "crushed for our transgressions".

"Overall, the film presents Jews in much the same way as any other group - a mix of vice and virtue, good and bad. Yet while the larger Jewish community is shown to hold diverse opinions concerning Christ's fate - exemplified by the cacophony of taunts and tears along the Via Dolorosa - it fails to reflect the wider political nuances of first-century Judea. The scene of the stock frenzied mob uniformly calling for Christ's crucifixion in Pilate's courtyard is problematic.

"The most visually distinctive representatives of Jewish authority - the High Priest Caiphas (Matia Sbragia) and those in the Sanhedrin aligned with him - do come across as almost monolithically malevolent...

"Pontius Pilate is almost gentle with Jesus. This overly sympathetic portrayal of the procurator as a vacillating, conflicted and world-weary backwater bureaucrat, averse to unnecessary roughness and easily coerced by both his Jewish subjects and his conscience-burdened wife, does not mesh with the Pilate of history, remembered by the ancient historians as a ruthless and inflexible brute responsible for ordering the execution of hundreds of Jewish rabble-rousers without hesitation.

"However, while the members of Sanhedrin are painted in villainous shades, the film is abundantly clear that it is the Romans who are Christ's executioners.

"The Passion is exceedingly graphic in its portrayal of the barbarities of Roman justice. According to Gibson, much of the visual grisliness of Christ's suffering sprung from his own personal meditations on the Passion.

"As depicted, the violence, while explicit and extreme, does not seem an end in itself. It is not the kind of violence made to look exciting, glamorised or without consequences.

"It attempts to convey the depths of salvific divine love. Nonetheless, viewers' justifiable reaction is to be repelled by such unremitting inhumanity. In the end, such savagery may be self-defeating in trying to capture the imagination of the everyday moviegoer.

"In contrast to Jesus's physical agony is the emotional desolation seen in the figure of the Virgin Mary. When Mary utters: 'When, how, where, will you choose to be delivered from this?', the viewer is pierced by the depth of Mary's understanding of Christ's divinity and her sublime acceptance of seeing her son suffer...

"Morgenstern's portrayal of Mary is beautifully rendered, never more so than in the Pietà-like tableau when Christ's body is laid in her arms.

"The juxtaposition of the wounded and bleeding body of Christ on the cross with scenes of the Last Supper compellingly underscores how the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Christ.

"Other indelible images include a derided Jesus faltering under the weight of the cross intercut with his earlier triumphant entry into Jerusalem and a single raindrop - a tear from heaven - heralding Christ's death.

"Cinematically, there are flaws as well as triumphs in Gibson's film, such as a recurring tendency to slip into the horror-genre conventions, including a scene of a guilt-wracked Judas being taunted by little boys whose faces turn into those of grotesque, macabre ghouls.

"And close-ups of Christ's scarred and mutilated body are truly horrible.

For those coming to the film without a faith perspective it may have little resonance. But for Christians, The Passion of the Christ is likely to arouse not only passionate opinions, but hopefully a deeper understanding of the drama of salvation and the magnitude of God's love and forgiveness. It is not about what men did to God, but what God endured for humanity."

We await the release of the film in Malta, which thanks to KRS is going to be one of the first countries to show it.