Director Mel Gibson is so focused on the bloody suffering of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ that the film, though excellent, becomes a test of endurance.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published February 24, 2004
What does it profit a filmmaker if he shall gain authenticity but lose his audience? That, and not any anti-Semitic fallout, is the key issue facing Mel Gibson with Wednesday's release of The Passion of the Christ, a brutally beautiful account of the last 12 hours in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth.
Protests that Gibson's film casts undue blame on Jews for the death of Jesus will serve only to sell tickets. What moviegoers take away from the theater is what matters, and it may not be exactly what Gibson hopes.
The Passion of the Christ is as close to cinematic perfection as any film could be, constructed with meticulous attention to detail, including dead languages. Nothing can be faulted about the film except Gibson's disturbing preoccupation with Jesus' passion, his suffering for mankind's sins. Unlike crowd-pleasers such as King of Kings or The Greatest Story Ever Told, the second hour of Gibson's version is so relentlessly gory that some viewers, even true believers, may not last to the end.
The blood of Jesus shed during his final hours is central to Christian belief, although modern worshipers never witnessed it drawn so grotesquely and flowing so freely. Gibson has said his conservative Catholicism compels him to make it so; he wants viewers to wince at each lashing and puncture of Jesus' skin. By realizing the pain Jesus endured, we're expected to fully appreciate his sacrifice.
The same story - with the same controversial portrayal of Jewish leaders urging crucifixion - was more emotionally accessible in The Gospel of John, a recent, low-key independent release, less polished than Gibson's film, with a comparably minor amount of blood. The sacrifice seemed just as important, and a restraint of violence enabled tears of shame and appreciation to fall. Gibson's film shocks them back into their ducts.
The Passion of the Christ becomes an expertly conceived endurance test. How much abuse can Jesus take at the hands of barbarous Roman soldiers, and how much can we stand to observe? That's too bad, because viscera can obliterate the message.
The Passion of the Christ boasts excellent production values, with painstaking detail for the period and place, for which Italian locations substitute well. Each frame is composed with care by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, teaming with John Debney's eerily inspiring musical score to fill eyes and ears with the proper spirit before the makeup effects and screams, even the sound of tearing flesh, make us want to shut them.
Having his actors speak in Aramaic and Latin (with English subtitles Gibson at first resisted) is a brilliant touch of realism. As Jesus, Jim Caviezel is as astonishing as the circumstances demand he should be, appearing to suffer deeper and longer than any actor ever filmed in any role. The physical demands, even with precautions taken, were enormous. Yet Caviezel also captures Jesus' gentle spirit, his quietly composed anguish, even a playful side with his mother, Mary, in a flashback.
Also impressive are Hristo Naumov Shopov as Pontius Pilate, played more conflicted than some historians credit him, and Maia Morgenstern as Mary, whose maternal pain is wonderfully understated. There isn't an off-key performance among the ensemble despite the language demands.
Gibson and co-screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald regularly find moments for flashbacks to Jesus' youth, the Last Supper and the Sermon on the Mount. These serve as contrasts with Jesus' agony, underlining its purpose and applicable morality.
Yet Gibson always seems eager to get back to much longer depictions of bone-crunching falls and barbed whips ripping through flesh, all of it aggressively unsettling. We see nearly each disfiguring blow, often with slow-motion enhancing the impact. Some viewers will agree with Gibson that it's necessary. Personally, I can't.
The Passion of the Christ is much more impressive when taking poetic license with Scripture, foremost with an androgynous Satan (Rosalinda Celentano) lurking in the background. Jesus' sacrifice was a battleground between good and evil; turning that philosophical struggle into a physical manifestation is inspired filmmaking. Satan attempts to sway Jesus' faith in a quietly tense scene at Gethsemane before his arrest, then along the road to Golgotha, and finally howling in defeat when Jesus' end comes according to God's plan.
The screenplay is adept at incorporating elements of other Gospels besides John's, from an introductory Old Testament verse predicting "by his wounds we are healed" to a comment by Jesus to his mother near the end, lifted from the book of Revelation.
Nothing that Gibson does to shape his version can be considered as irreverent as Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, probably the most criticized version of the Crucifixion before this. Rather, the filmmaker clarifies and ties together a complex literary source, even while tinkering with its chronology. Certainly it's more aesthetically thrilling than the verse-by-verse recitation of The Gospel of John.
For Christians, what's most essential to Jesus' sacrifice isn't how painfully he died, but that he was resurrected. Gibson ends his film with that event, although so vaguely and rapidly that it becomes a mere footnote to agony. Blood becomes the sermon, making viewers as likely to press their hands to their faces in self-defense as in prayer.
The Passion of the Christ
Grade: A-
Director: Mel Gibson
Cast: Jim Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Hristo Naumov Shopov, Mattia Sbragia, Francesco De Vito, Monica Bellucci, Rosalinda Celentano, Luca Lionello, Fabio Sartor, Hristo Jivkov
