"Passion of the Christ", another review

by MegaDude 22 Replies latest jw friends

MegaDude

This film is intense.
As you've read by now, the film depicts the last 12 hours in Jesus' life. Everything you've heard about the graphic violence of this film is true. I have seen a lot of movies, but this film takes disturbing visuals to a level I haven't witnessed before. If you have a weak stomach or you don't like violence, skip this one.
Things I enjoyed about this film were the acting, the sets, the costumes and the cinematography. The film is beautifully shot. The fact the film is done in Aramaic and Greek doesn't take away from it at all. Mel Gibson is a very good director.
Satan is always lurking in the background, with his evil other-worldly appearance, whispering to Jesus that he can't shoulder the burden of what is to come, observing Jesus' torture. I liked the scene at the end where he knows he is vanquished, screaming out his anger in hell.
The relationship and closeness of Jesus and his mother is deeply felt. When Mary sees her adult son falling under the weight of the cross, so badly beaten he is almost dead, she has a flashback to when he was a little boy and had fallen and she ran to him to comfort him and hold him . But now there is nothing she can do but watch as her son grimly goes forward to fulfill his purpose.
The graphic violence of Jesus' beating and crucifixion is interrupted by calm flashbacks where Jesus is working as a carpenter, teaching people about love, talking to his disciples. I thought this was effective in that it showed what his message was and gave you a break from the violence.
The Pharisees that engineer and railroad Jesus to his death reminded so much of what the Governing Body of the Watchtower are like. Strutting, focused on eliminating anybody who doesn't agree with them, pompous, vehment. Religious people in power haven't changed in 2000 years.
I'm glad I saw this film. But it is not entertainment. It's a story about a man who holds to what he believes his purpose is, his truth, no matter what is thrown at him. I thought it was inspirational. Many people were crying halfway through it.
This film is bound to elicit strong emotional reactions, pro and con.
SixofNine

I'm interested to see how I'll react to this film.
I hear about the violence, and I think "where does that come in to the story? It has to be mostly speculation, though I know it was rough days to be martyred". I can't see how I'll be more sympathetic to a supposedly perfect man, facing 3 days of death w/o a trace of fear, than I am to the children killed and forced to kill in the movie City of God? Or the recent real life story of the 3 year old (month?) child who was found to have multiple rib fractures and other bones broken from previous torture when it finally died at such a young age.
I just don't see how this movie will move me, but I've been wrong about that before. I look forward to seeing it.
rocketman

Maybe it should have been called Lethal Weapon 5.
Yerusalyim

I'm waiting to see how I react to the violence too. I've had anxiety attacks from violent movies...Casino comes to mind, at the end where Pesci is being beaten with a baseball bat...the sounds, etc, gave me an anxiety attack. Hope this doesn't happen in the movie.
Big Tex

I'm curious about it. Truthfully I didn't really care for Braveheart, so I'll be interested to see how he portrays this story.
To anyone who has already seen it, do you feel it was anti-Semitic? I've heard that criticism and I'm wondering if there is any validity to the accusation or is it the latest in political correctness?
TheSilence

I didn't feel it was anti-semitic at all.
Jackie
MegaDude

The movie seems to track along with the Gospel accounts, so if you view the Gospel accounts as anti-Semetic then you might view the film in the same way. The people accusing the film as being anti-Jewish have an agenda. After all, the "hero" of the film is a Jew. Sheesh.
Elsewhere

I can't help but wonder why so many people are claiming that it is anti-Semitic when it is based on the bible. Does this mean that the bible is anti-Semitic hate speech?
Steve Lowry

A few years ago I got into a debate with a JW on the Internet concerning the stake verses cross thing. So, I decided I would go to the local library here and research it the subject so I could speak more intelligently about it. Well all I can say is, if the "Passion of the Christ " movie relates the brutality of that time, then its right on target with history.
When I got to the library I just started pulling reference books off shelves with no bias as to which ones. BTW, it would have been very unlikely that Jesus would have been crucified on a stake or a pole (or anyone else in that time frame for that matter). It was the custom for the Romans to make their victims carry the pantabelum (the cross section of the cross) across their shoulders on the way to the place of crucifixion. Once there they laid the victim down and affixed the pantebelum portion to the pole (vertical) section and then raised it upwards and the whole contraption fell into a dugout hole in the ground. The pole portion stayed pretty much at the site and the pantebelum portion was kind of portable and was carried back for another victim to be saddled with it, and the whole process would start again. Wood was fairly scarce in many areas, so recycling was in order.
As to the cruelty, it was unmatched in human history and I believe even unto this day (including the Holocaust). People were hung on all matter of crosses. There were X type crosses. There were stakes with side beams attached to stretch out the victim?s limbs. There were upside down crosses as well. The brutality was so bad that many of the current day reporters wouldn?t record the goings on. Of course some did. Its funny, but today it?s practically fashionable to wear a cross around the neck, but in those days it was a great shame to have a loved one crucified on a cross. It was reserved for the most despicable characters according to Roman law and thought.
After reading for about a half day about this portion of history I could read no longer, as it sickened me so. Its amazing just how inhuman man can treat man. So, if the movie attempts to portray this period of time of man?s history as a brutal one, then its not just brutality for brutality?s sake set in a movie.
After doing my research that day I was very grateful to live in the time we do.
I?ll be seeing this movie. I?ve ?read the book? already.
Steve
abbagail

Thanks MegaDude for the detailed personal 'review' of the movie, well done. And thanks to Steve for that info re: stake v. cross, as I was just wondering about that myself. After almost 14 years, the "JW-brain" still kicks in sometimes and gets me all confused, so the reminder about stake v. cross was a welcome read.

As for seeing the movie, I was all hyped up to see it until hearing more about the violence and being a whimper myself... Yeru's comments hit home how things can stay in our heads and give us the heebie-geebies... which reminded me of some of the first gruesome movies I ever saw when I was much younger... "Walking Tall" about Sheriff Buford Pusser (sp?), pretty gorey stuff for back in those days... and In Cold Blood, ooooh man... and then another movie, Vanished (I think was the name) where that guy purposely drove his car at high speed straight into that earth-moving machine and the car exploded... tame by today's standards but I couldn't get that scene (or the emotions that went with it) out of my younger mind/heart for a long time. And who can forget the old Charlie Bronson movies and how shocking they were at the time? (then I became a dub and quit movies for a long time). Anyway, Yeru's comments have me thinking twice, along with these comments below...

Bill O'Reilly was on The View this morning and he and Joy-whatsherface got in a big shouting match about the movie. O'Reilly says he cannot recommend the movie solely based on the unrelenting violence, though he wholeheartedly supports Mel's right to make and show such a movie. He said all the bashing of Mel is unfounded, that worse movies have been made and nobody said a word (he says they are picking on Mel unfairly). He asked where was the NY Times when these other movies were shown? He said the New York Times' article today (which I had read earlier this morning also) was maligning Mel all over the place (yes, they quoted some of his friends saying less-than-favorable things about him though the article ended on an upbeat). O'Reilly also pointed out a few discrepancies compared to scripture and Joy-big-mouth jumped all over him, "Yeah, see, it's not even accurate!!!!" whatever... She kept spouting that what she didn't approve of is Mel's "dishonesty" (ie, Mel saying the movie IS based on the gospels and then it not being totally word for word accurate). Yesterday Joy had said the Gospels were written HUNDREDS OF YEARS after the fact so how could it be accurate? (I sent her an email yesterday giving her the commonly-accepted historical dates of the four Gospels, not that she really gives a hoot. ;-) O'Reilly ended his 'argument' saying the all the negative hoopla about Mel is nothing but the ogoing ploy of the seculars to get and keep God/Jesus/religion OUT OF EVERYTHING. Joy jumped all over him for that, too, saying it wasn't true. But I agree with O'Reilly on that point 100%. (btw, isn't the NYTimes owned/operated by Jewish folks?)

Last night Charlie Rose on PBS had a segment on the movie, four men (sorry I don't remember who they all were, I was half-listening while online; but one was the Newsweek reporter who had done the long article a week or so ago/Meachum-sp?). One other guy was the harshest of the four, calling it nothing but a pure unadulterated Fascist movie. He basically said that due to the fact Mel is a pre-Vatican-II Catholic, that fact shows Mel is anti-Semitic since Vatican-II is when the pope made the edict (or whatever it's called) that the church was wrong and sorry for blaming the Jews all these centuries for Jesus' death, etc. This same guy was also really bent that Mel will not denounce his father's opinions about the Holocaust being partly fake, etc. And he, or one of the others, was really ticked that Mel didn't take out the scene re: Matthew 27:25 (let his blood be upon us and our children). This guy said that Mel had PROMISED that he would remove it, but all he did was remove the SUBTITLES but left the actual scene in (Mel clearly stated this in the Diane Sawyer/ABC interview last week that he left the scene in/removed subtitle). Personally I was glad Mel did not totally compromise on that, but whether he really "promised" that he WOULD take it out, I do not know. The reason this guy was so ticked, he said, is because when the movie is shown in the Middle East where anti-Semitism is rampant, those people WILL be able to understand the words in Aramaic in that particular scene, with or without subtitles, and it was his opinion that Mel did this on purpose just to stir up trouble. -- Lastly, one or two guys on Charlie Rose were talking about religious art and other Jesus movies and one man was saying how he purposefully downplayed the brutality of crucifixion (in his artwork, I think) because he said he knows the 'dark side' of human nature may be to end up being 'sucked in' by gruesome stuff and he never wanted to take people quite that far...

There was a friendly, articulate Jewish man (wearing a top hat like my grandfather used to wear) chatting with Pat Robertson yesterday about it on the 700 Club (sorry, no memory here of the Rabbi's name but they seemed to be buddies). This Rabbi said (by name) the guy who started the anti-Semitism rumors a year ago adding, "It wasn't true then, it's not true now, and he/JohnDoe is going to have to eat his words..." -- something like that.

One more thought: If anyone subscribes to cuttingedge.org, he has a very interesting article about the movie this week, with not-commonly-thought-of (at least not by me) reasons to think twice and 'pray instensely' (his words) before seeing it. If I get a chance I'll go dig out the link but I think you have to be a subscriber to read it.

I also heard on the noon news today that the movie grossed between $15-$20 mil on it's first day yesterday, making more than all the Star War movies, etc. (Last night there was a news clip about the theater in Plano, TX, where they were staying open 24/7 and running the movie round the clock.) Amazing.

In any event, keep the reviews coming. Like the OJ trial, I can't seem to get enough of this. :-/

GRITS

"Passion of the Christ", another review

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