This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entry.
The Passion of the Christ
To start off with, I will tell you that I do call myself a Christian. I think it's obvious why that might be something you might like to know about someone who is talking about this movie.
I remember the hype when this movie came out. It seemed like most Christians considered it obligatory for them to see this film. I honestly don't make much personal effort to see most films that come out in the theater, but that is often even more of the case for movies with as much hype as this one. That isn't to say I specifically avoided this movie. I was always curious, but only so I would have some sort of reference point for any conversation or allusions to the film.
Finally I've seen it. I guess I just needed to know for sure that I didn't need to see it. Well, I think I was right.
I never quite got the idea of focusing strictly on events of Christ's crucifixion and the hours immediately leading up to it. I know Passion Plays have been around for a long time, since the middle ages I believe. But isn't this also the same era that gave us our modern image of Hell as some subterranean, fiery pit of physical torture? Sure there were flashbacks to other well known moments of Jesus' life throughout the ordeal, but I was already too bored with the rest of it to get anything out of these clips, which seemed almost like television commercial length when compared to how drawn out the main focus of the film was.
I suppose I hand guessed, but not fully anticipated how much of a Hollywood technique affair this would be. They talk about this thing as the highest grossing independent film. Well it has the pacing and directing of movies like Con Air and Armageddon. There's no moment of silence, few static shots. I think there are more moments where the film is played back at an altered frame rate than not.
And here's something that my friend Nick said when he watched it with me that seems to really describe what is going on here. Everything is external. When something evil is going on, real life physical demons appear or people turn into demons. The brutality is all visualized to the most extreme, comical lengths. The camera angles, the expressions on people's faces. There's hardly a time when the music stops and we get a real scene of some quality film acting. Take a look at Passolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew, which is probably the best movie about the life of Jesus that I've seen, for an example of the opposite. This is a movie that, despite some also comical low quality effects, tells things fairly straightforward without any embellishment.
I'm sure this has also been said several times before: the culmination of the story with the resurrection is certainly made clear, but in this situation I just think it needed more emphasis.
The obligatory score: 4/10 stars