The film covers the final days of Jesus (James Caviezel), based on the Christian Bible. It begins with one of Jesus' followers, Judas, leading ideological/political opponents to Jesus so they can arrest him, and covers his trial and the carrying out of his sentence(s).
This is not an easy film to review, as it is so difficult to divorce it from the broader cultural and belief issues, as I feel we must. A film, as an artwork, isn't better or worse because of your personal beliefs in its veracity or even its cultural importance. A large part of what I do as a critic is to try to review films as artworks apart from those extra-filmic kinds of considerations. This leads me to say that I think something like Citizen Kane (1941) is not a very good film, whereas something like Catwoman (2004) is. I'm not denying that Citizen Kane is historically important or that a lot of people love it, think it "rings true" and think it is one of the greatest films ever made. I'm likewise not denying that a lot of people hate Catwoman and think it is "unrealistic". When it comes to whether I believe that they're good films or not, those issues just do not matter.
I should tell you that I do not believe in the "truth" of any religion, and I haven't ever been socialized into any religious beliefs. I have little knowledge of the minutiae of specific religious texts, including the Bible. I have some interest in the philosophical and other broad theoretical and cultural/social issues involving and surrounding religions, but none of those are relevant to me when it comes to saying whether The Passion of the Christ is good as an artwork. I don't think this is a particularly good film. It does have merits, but it's loaded with problems.
The chief problem is that writer/director Mel Gibson thinks that exposition isn't important. He's probably assuming that almost everyone watching will not need to be told who characters are or why they're doing what they're doing. I'm not very familiar with the source material--I haven't read the book the film is based on, although I've browsed through it. I don't think that films should require prerequisites, with the sole exception of some entries in a series.
For the mob(s) depicted to be reacting so strongly against Jesus, there must be some interesting events in his past and some interesting psychological and sociological phenomena occurring. We can tell there's an intriguing story somewhere, but Gibson instead spends far too much time on very narrow events that do not have the impact they should have when they're out of the broader context. Yes I know that "The Passion" refers to a specific sequence of events in the protagonist's life, but that doesn't make this succeed as an artwork. I'm not going to give extra points for getting the name of the film "right". Gibson could do a film called The Breakfast of Mr. Jones, and if it's just 90 minutes of a guy eating pancakes, it might be a bad film.
Other than the mob mentality, most of the other main characters, including Jesus, are portrayed as if they have a degree of mental illness. That's also intriguing but not explored. Judas has hallucinations and hangs himself. Jesus can't or won't talk and when he does, he mostly says cryptic things. He shows little awareness of his predicament. We need to be shown more about these characters for this to make sense or have impact.
In addition to being cryptic, a lot of the dialogue is hokey. The best dialogue, and the best material in the film in general involved the Romans. They were the only ones shown with a degree of psychological depth. Their difficult situation as overseers of an outpost in their empire created ethical quagmires for them, one of which is the gist of the film. They're appropriately shown having a range of dynamic reactions to their treatment of their prisoner, from sympathy and regret to murderous, mob-mentality abuse.
That treatment comprises a huge percentage of the film. A lengthy section consists of Jesus being whipped until he's almost dead. A larger section consists of him walking through town carrying a heavy wooden cross. While the whipping mostly works, the latter section is far too drawn out, with Gibson repeating material such as Jesus collapsing five or six times. It's effective once or twice. Five or six times feels like padding. Maybe that's what the Bible says happened, but we can't forget that this is a film, and has to work as such.
Another problem is the music. While some of it is attractive, it's because it is so close to Peter Gabriel's score for The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) that Gabriel could probably successfully sue for copyright infringement. Influence is fine, but plagiarism is something I don't condone.
However, the cinematography throughout the film is fantastic. DP Caleb Deschanel deserves kudos. A number of scenes/shots stand out visually, one of the best being after Jesus is whipped and his intensely red blood stains the gray-white square. Another is when Jesus is about to be arrested, and bright yellow-orange flames stand out against a washed-out, dark, blue-gray texture.
The visceral nature of the film is excellent. This would be a dream come true for someone with a torture fetish. The graphic material is handled extremely realistically--it's difficult to discern any prosthetics or special effects make-up. It really looks like they just beat the hell out of Caviezel. Horror special effects/make-up artists should study the film and the techniques used.
And of course, as I mentioned earlier, there is promise to the story. A good film could certainly be made using this material. It's just not this one. If you have strong beliefs in Christianity you might find the film an extremely moving experience, but that doesn't describe me.
This is not an easy film to review, as it is so difficult to divorce it from the broader cultural and belief issues, as I feel we must. A film, as an artwork, isn't better or worse because of your personal beliefs in its veracity or even its cultural importance. A large part of what I do as a critic is to try to review films as artworks apart from those extra-filmic kinds of considerations. This leads me to say that I think something like Citizen Kane (1941) is not a very good film, whereas something like Catwoman (2004) is. I'm not denying that Citizen Kane is historically important or that a lot of people love it, think it "rings true" and think it is one of the greatest films ever made. I'm likewise not denying that a lot of people hate Catwoman and think it is "unrealistic". When it comes to whether I believe that they're good films or not, those issues just do not matter.
I should tell you that I do not believe in the "truth" of any religion, and I haven't ever been socialized into any religious beliefs. I have little knowledge of the minutiae of specific religious texts, including the Bible. I have some interest in the philosophical and other broad theoretical and cultural/social issues involving and surrounding religions, but none of those are relevant to me when it comes to saying whether The Passion of the Christ is good as an artwork. I don't think this is a particularly good film. It does have merits, but it's loaded with problems.
The chief problem is that writer/director Mel Gibson thinks that exposition isn't important. He's probably assuming that almost everyone watching will not need to be told who characters are or why they're doing what they're doing. I'm not very familiar with the source material--I haven't read the book the film is based on, although I've browsed through it. I don't think that films should require prerequisites, with the sole exception of some entries in a series.
For the mob(s) depicted to be reacting so strongly against Jesus, there must be some interesting events in his past and some interesting psychological and sociological phenomena occurring. We can tell there's an intriguing story somewhere, but Gibson instead spends far too much time on very narrow events that do not have the impact they should have when they're out of the broader context. Yes I know that "The Passion" refers to a specific sequence of events in the protagonist's life, but that doesn't make this succeed as an artwork. I'm not going to give extra points for getting the name of the film "right". Gibson could do a film called The Breakfast of Mr. Jones, and if it's just 90 minutes of a guy eating pancakes, it might be a bad film.
Other than the mob mentality, most of the other main characters, including Jesus, are portrayed as if they have a degree of mental illness. That's also intriguing but not explored. Judas has hallucinations and hangs himself. Jesus can't or won't talk and when he does, he mostly says cryptic things. He shows little awareness of his predicament. We need to be shown more about these characters for this to make sense or have impact.
In addition to being cryptic, a lot of the dialogue is hokey. The best dialogue, and the best material in the film in general involved the Romans. They were the only ones shown with a degree of psychological depth. Their difficult situation as overseers of an outpost in their empire created ethical quagmires for them, one of which is the gist of the film. They're appropriately shown having a range of dynamic reactions to their treatment of their prisoner, from sympathy and regret to murderous, mob-mentality abuse.
That treatment comprises a huge percentage of the film. A lengthy section consists of Jesus being whipped until he's almost dead. A larger section consists of him walking through town carrying a heavy wooden cross. While the whipping mostly works, the latter section is far too drawn out, with Gibson repeating material such as Jesus collapsing five or six times. It's effective once or twice. Five or six times feels like padding. Maybe that's what the Bible says happened, but we can't forget that this is a film, and has to work as such.
Another problem is the music. While some of it is attractive, it's because it is so close to Peter Gabriel's score for The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) that Gabriel could probably successfully sue for copyright infringement. Influence is fine, but plagiarism is something I don't condone.
However, the cinematography throughout the film is fantastic. DP Caleb Deschanel deserves kudos. A number of scenes/shots stand out visually, one of the best being after Jesus is whipped and his intensely red blood stains the gray-white square. Another is when Jesus is about to be arrested, and bright yellow-orange flames stand out against a washed-out, dark, blue-gray texture.
The visceral nature of the film is excellent. This would be a dream come true for someone with a torture fetish. The graphic material is handled extremely realistically--it's difficult to discern any prosthetics or special effects make-up. It really looks like they just beat the hell out of Caviezel. Horror special effects/make-up artists should study the film and the techniques used.
And of course, as I mentioned earlier, there is promise to the story. A good film could certainly be made using this material. It's just not this one. If you have strong beliefs in Christianity you might find the film an extremely moving experience, but that doesn't describe me.