For the record, I am not a religious person. I don't consider myself an atheist but I also have no use for organized religion. What I think about god is between god and me. I say that because I think a person's religious convictions will be integral to that person's reaction to the film. I don't have much of a religious education so I'm only mildly familiar with the details of this story. That became a real problem for me in following the film's story. The biggest problem for me is that the film provides almost no context for the story. It covers the last twelve hours of Jesus's life. That means there is very little in the movie that explains what Jesus taught. It provides very little idea of just why people were so enraged by him. It shows very little of his followers to get their viewpoint. So for me, this is mostly a movie about a guy getting beaten to hamburger before being crucified.
That lack of context means it will work best for people well versed in this story. They will be able to understand what is going on and who all these people are. I spent a lot of the movie wondering who this person or that person is supposed to be. In particular, the character of Magdalen (Monica Bellucci) seems to exist in a vacuum. I honestly had no idea from watching this movie what her role in all of this was. She basically wandered through the film with Mary and another man who I never figured out either. This is a movie that assumes you already know all the details.
As for historical accuracy, it's pretty hard to judge since most information about the events in this story come to us second hand. But it is pretty much a given that Pontius Pilate was a tyrant, crushing dissent in this area for the Roman Empire. The movie however, presents him as a thoughtful man who would go a long way to avoid bloodshed. He tries very hard to find a solution that doesn't involve crucifying Jesus before finally acquiescing to the demands of the crowd. It is here that the charges of anti-Semitism are hardest to ignore. Jewish crowds (it took quite awhile for them to be identified, for a long time I just had to assume they were Jewish) are presented as blood thirsty, demanding Jesus's execution. Pilate, his wife and his right hand man are all shown as rather compassionate. But the charge doesn't have too much weight as apart from those three and Jesus's family and followers, everyone comes across as bloodthirsty. The Roman soldiers in particular are a sadistic lot who take great joy in doling out torture and abuse. Most important in relation to the charges though are Jesus's own words. He says that his life is his own to offer and no one can do that for him. Essentially, he states that he is sacrificing his own mortal life to atone for the sins of the world. Whether he was killed by the Romans or Jews is irrelevant. He dies of his own choice.
The film is shot exceptionally well. Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel pulls out all the stops to give this fairly low budget film a gorgeous look and feel. Gibson's direction is good but not particularly daring. The acting is all quite good, with Maia Morgenstern as Jesus's mother Mary the standout. While she has little dialogue, she does a magnificent job of conveying the pain of a mother watching her son be persecuted, tortured and executed. For me, most of the film's emotional weight came directly from her. Jim Caviezel as Jesus can mostly be commended for endurance. He takes a pretty good beating in the movie and must have spent countless hours having makeup applied to produce his many wounds.
The other main contention against this film is the violence. As I mentioned earlier, a very large part of the movie is Jesus getting brutally beaten. I really can't emphasize the brutal part enough. One very extended scene has him being first caned and then whipped with flails that have jagged metal tips. The beating goes on seemingly forever, causing some walkouts at my screening. The makeup used for the wounds is of a grisly nature. Jesus eventually seems to be made up entirely of tattered flesh. He must lose a few gallons of blood during the movie. One part of the beating in particular is deliberately meant to shock and appall. Gibson has stated that he deliberately cranked up the violence because he wanted to get across what Jesus went through in sacrificing himself for everyone's sins. While I certainly wasn't put off by the blood and gore (if you can sit through Dead Alive, not much will faze you), its relentless nature did become tiresome. There wasn't much sense that Gibson ever really felt he had gotten his point across. Long after most directors would have eased off and gotten on with other elements of the story, Gibson throws in a few more lashes of the whip or knocking Jesus to the ground a few more times. If the movie did a better job of providing a fuller picture of Jesus and what he taught and the climate he lived in, I could be more forgiving of the violence. It needed context to bring it into focus. Instead it's more of a chance to appreciate some quality makeup work.
This is not a subtle film. It is more like a punch in the face than a religious experience. Gibson has shown much better instincts as a director in the past. The first twenty minutes or so of the film I would actually describe as dull. I said I had little use for organized religion. For me that springs largely from the inflexibility of organized religions. So much of it becomes about following some belief to the letter of the law, a behavior that tends to breed intolerance of other beliefs. For my tastes, I am much more impressed with a pair of religious films dubbed controversial: The Last Temptation of Christ and Dogma. The Last Temptation is a thoughtful film that sweeps aside inflexible beliefs and tries to take a hard look at what it would mean for Jesus to be both man and god. It tells largely the same story as The Passion but provides the context very much missing from this latest film. The other movie, the comedy Dogma, I appreciated most for its assertion that religion is about ideas, not beliefs. Ideas give people the freedom to be their best, to improve themselves and the world around them. Beliefs tend to codify the world into unyielding laws that restrict thought and action. The Passion of the Christ is a movie about a belief. But I can't put down Gibson for that. Obviously, for him, his faith rests heavily on this singular moment that serves as the basis for the entire religion. For him, to detail this part of the story with an unflinching eye was important. That speaks to the film's lack of context. It isn't a movie about what Jesus taught but about his sacrifice. For those sharing this belief, this is probably a powerful moving film. But for those who don't follow that belief, it isn't likely to be a particularly effective film.
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