An Extremely Topical Review of "The Passion of the Christ"

  Mel Gibson’s filmmaking provokes endless, slightly perverse fascination. On the one hand he is a skilled director, who knows how to target an audience and play to their emotions and expectations. On the other, it has been repeatedly pointed out that aspects of the worldview his films express can border on the poisonous, arguably crossing the line into seriously dubious territory. The Passion of the Christ, a vivid and unabashedly Catholic depiction of the climax of the New Testament, is noteworthy for its place in the cultural history of the early 21^st century as much as in Gibson’s strange and savage oeuvre; but the frenzy of publicity and controversy that swirled around the film at time of release came close to obscuring sober critical judgements of its worth as piece of visual art and storytelling.

 The most vital detail to establish about Passion is that the viewer’s emotional response is inevitably going to be tied very closely to their background and their feelings (with a stress on feelings, rather than thoughts; this is a work that attempts to provoke raw emotion, not reasoned reflection) about Jesus and Christianity. I find it very difficult to imagine Passion inspiring many non-believers to join the Elect, and those with pre-existing indifference or hostility towards Catholic beliefs are likely to find themselves at best non-plussed, and at worst repelled by the camera’s grisly obsession with human suffering. This is a film made by a staunch Catholic, which draws upon Catholic doctrine (debatably) and tradition in a manner guaranteed to resonate with Catholics.

  As a work of devotion, a modern day Passion Play with special effects and swarms of extras, I can see how it might inspire, shock and rivet a believing audience, at least on first viewing. However, it is glaringly obvious that this is only one, albeit critical, chapter of a much longer story, the story of Jesus’ life. It feels oddly like Jim Caviezel (who gives an excellent, if necessarily uncomplicated performance as Christ) is reprising the role after earlier instalments covering Jesus’ ministry that don’t actually exist, and that the film’s ending shows him striding in the direction of sequels that will never be made. Without a proper dramatic arc (flashbacks to Jesus’ pre-mauling life are awkwardly crow-barred in to break up the scenes of bloodshed), all the viewer is left with is a lengthy torture and execution simulation. It might work as a sort of time-travelling glimpse into the first century, but any sense of gazing down the millennia at profound and holy events is undermined by how glossily cinematic everything is, not to mention crudely-handled and unnecessary demonic manifestations. The evident and admirable insistence that the horrors of Jesus’ passing be un-sanitised (which curiously never extends to showing him crucified naked) is taken too far, as is depiction of Jesus’ tormentors, with a suspiciously stereotypical-looking Sanhedrin, a Herod who is shown as effeminate as a convenient shorthand for moral degeneracy, and a Barabbas who looks like a fairy-tale ogre. Gibson symbolically used his own hands in the close-up shot of the fateful nails being driven in; a theological statement rendered pointless by making the persecutors so impossible to relate to.

  The infamous scourging scene is the worst offender; it hardly strains credulity that Roman guards might go about their duties with a degree of sadism, but rather than the bored and banal cruelty you might expect, they are cackling devils who bear little resemblance to convincing human beings. The grisly flogging is taken to pointless lengths; after having his skin shredded and being forced to drag his own cross under the shower of blows for ages, Jesus’ actual crucifixion runs the risk of being bizarrely anti-climactic. The rational response to this would be to go back and edit out the worst moments of the flogging, but instead Gibson decides to have Jesus’ shoulder dislocated just to make the audience cringe.   

  The film’s saving grace is it’s convincing evocations of the relationship between Jesus and his loved ones, particularly Mary (Maia Morgenstern communicates immense sorrow and anguish despite rarely speaking), through tiny vignettes and meaningful glances.  However alienated some viewers might be by the extended gore and the shabby characterisation of the “villains”, the film is visually impressive in its staging and the less caricatured performances are full of understated power. The potential for this material, with the directorial talent behind it, to have been something more than the sum of its parts is obvious, but with Gibson’s career implosion this is territory he is unlikely to re-visit, leaving us with a glossy, eccentric, lurid slice of Biblical cinema.