The Passion : A review

In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined it being this awful. What a disgrace. A completely unimaginative travesty. John Woo was blushing at the excessive slo-mo.

Will write more later/tomorrow, but now to torture myself with the Academy Awards. . .

All in all, everything went as planned. Only highlight of the evening was Sofia Coppola giving a shoutout to some folks who have actually made important cinema--Antonioni, Wong Kar-Wai, Godard.

My question, now that Passion cleaned major fucking house this weekend (Oscar finds it very difficult to ignore "serious," "adult" hits), is it bad enough to be a major player next year?

And I won't deny that Coppola's invocation of the cinematic geniuses wasn't more than a slight bit pretentious--but I agree fully that it was just damn good to hear the names of great filmmakers in the midst of such mediocre ones.

Second, it's a piece of shit. No, really.

I'm not a Christian nor a Jew. I'm a Buddhist (and a a bad one at that). However, I love Jesus movies -- the various interpretations thrill me. From King of Kings to The Gospel According to St. Matthew to Godspell -- I love them all.

This film, though, is not a Jesus film -- more like a Jesus-snuff-porno kind of thing. The acting is horrendous, the "screenplay" is a joke, the directing is beyond heavy-handed. Every scene is played as if all the characters knew of the historical significance of their actions.

I really can't find the proper words to express just how awful this is. I wish I could. . .

What's the point of all the violence anyway? I guess it's just to shove in everybody's face "jesus suffered this much for you, you owe it to him to be a good christian, etc." either that or they realize the promise of excessive gore is going to bring in the "watch the car wreck" crowd who's hoping to see the next big thrill. I have no problem with excessive violence or shock value, but only when it serves in the context of the film, and not just to make people feel guilty about their religious beliefs.

Ok, I refuse to make any big dismissals of the film itself because i haven't seen it (besides the trailers). so for now i'll only criticize the decision to make it in the first place. and unless my girlfriend drags me to see it (which she probably will because she's been reading a lot about the illuminati & the templars so she's reading/watching anything that has to do with Christianity lately), i don't plan to spend $8.00 to see it.

Another thing just from watching the trailer--it looks like they stole 90% of the shots from "the last temptation of christ". Anyone who's seen the movie want to confirm this?

You're right though about shoving it in people's faces. I was pretty upset when I saw it -- a couple in front of me had their ~10 year-old son with them. The kid was freaking out, but they made him stay. He was shaking, he was so upset, but still they insisted.

As for stealing shots from Last Temptation...Mel only WISHES he could duplicate a shot from that film. This is amateur at best.

What's your girlfriend reading? I really got into that whole deal as well after reading Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Wait -- did she read The DaVinci Code? (Off topic, I know, but she really should check out The Templar Revelation -- best book on the subject, and fascinating.)

I'd be curious to hear from others who saw the film what they think about the portrayal of the Jews. I couldn't help but notice that almost all the scenes with the various rabbis were shot from profile, so as to enhance their hooked noses. (Whereas Pilate had the cutest button nose.)

Oh yeah -- the Satan is depicted as a woman. Nice one, Mel.

There's some sort of monster in the desert, children turn into deformed dwarves, there's a maggot-ridden-ass-carcass, and Satan is nursing a pale-white midget. Maybe I didn't take enough LSD before the screening.

Yeah, she read "The DaVinci Code" and has gone insane. She just finished reading "Holy Blood, Holy Grail". I've been trying to get her to read "Foucault's Pendulum" (I read it for an undergrad world lit class & was completely blown away), but she's waiting until she can find a used copy cheap so we can "study" it together.

"Oh yeah -- the Satan is depicted as a woman. Nice one, Mel."

Well, Scorsese kind of did this in "Temptation" with the little girl--but that's still different (deception through a symbol of innocence, compared to the "dark temptress" type I know gibson used).

"There's some sort of monster in the desert, children turn into deformed dwarves, there's a maggot-ridden-ass-carcass, and Satan is nursing a pale-white midget."

Oh, come on--just when I was sure I didn't want to see the movie, you had to put this in! It sounds like a Jodorowsky film!

I've been searching for some postive criticism of the film as a film, but everybody who has been praising it just speaks of the Jesus story, not the film itself.

(Ebert's ejaculation about the film is sickening. But he's a christian, so. . . .)

AS a film--there is stuff worth talking about, namely the treatment of the body, mary's gaze, etc. not saying this makes it a worthy film, but as someone who finds religion, esp old time intense fundamentalism (like calvinism) interesting and even worthy of a kind of perverted respect, i thought it was worth seeing.

slo mo was bad--thesis that spiritualism (immortality) is achieved through a (metaphorical) destruction of the body is interesting, if nothing new.

The flashbacks - from Jesus and the 2 Mary's -- how do you explain that? Jesus is suddenly reminded of something that happened the night before?

and is it just me or do we seem to be going into another wave of "jesus freaks" like in the late '60's?

Vatican II (amongst other things) got rid of the whole "Jews killed Jesus thing". Gibson doesn't believe in Vatican II, and this film clearly shows that.

I read yesterday that he worked with this stigmatic nun in Germany who provided details on exactly how Jesus’ crucifixion went. Um…..yeah.

yeah, we're pretty much fucked.

mad max!

that's sounds like a christian analysis if i've ever heard one!

EBERT: Well, this is the point that everybody seems to miss. There is this theory that 'somebody killed Jesus'… it misses the point. Jesus, if you‘re a Christian, came to earth to die. That was his mission. That was his purpose; that was his desire. And no individual, no race, no religion, no nation killed him.

According to Christian teaching, we all killed him. He died for our sins. So therefore anyone who thinks that, for example, the terrible idea that the Jews killed Jesus is correct, has not looked at their Bible and is not acting like a Christian, if they believe that. It‘s a sin.

These are not the comments of a film critic -- these are not critical comments about the film as a film, but rather a defense of Gibson's (twisted) viewpoint.

Nothing Ebert has said has been about the film itself. It's simply a defense of Gibson.

Norville asked him:

You got rather technical, rather philosophical, rather religious in your review on your show. ... Have you ever found yourself in recent memory getting so emotional about a movie and so personal in a review?

So, Ebert's 4 star review is of little use to me, and I think its credibility as "criticism" is questionable at best.

i mean, arguing about the screenplay or narrative of a movie like this is beyond pointless.

Should we speak of its spiritual nature?

I didn't have the heart to cut them off with an "I don't believe in God, please leave me alone."

this is where my problem arises in applauding the "cultural relevance" in movies. if anything, I think this is cinema's weakness, and god knows little good has come as a result of a film having "mass cultural relevance"--"triumph of the will" had mass cultural relevance, the "why we fight" films had mass cultural relevance, now this spoonfeeding of christian ideology. in fact, it seems the only films that fall under the moniker of being "culturally relevant" are ones that deal dogmatically with nationalist politics, propaganda, race or religion.

see, we americans and brits have more in common than we thought! :)

Then I read that he based much of the crucifiction scene on the writing of this 19th century stigmatic German nun who had dreams that were actually replays of the life of christ. What's that all about?

Shouldn't the Catholic church be up in arms about this? Isn't Mel a heretic then?

(The amount of negative mail that is generated by media pieces negative to religion/positive to atheism is staggering; I remember that a reporter who WROTE A STORY on the California atheist who tried to get "under God" removed from the Pledge of allegiance was besieged by thousands of pieces of hate mail, including a lot of death threats.)

Of course, as the most visible critic praising the film, Ebert is being asked to explain his enthusiasm and he is using the "If you're a Christian..." defense rather than talking about the merits of the film itself.

In the end, she said, “Gibson’s movie is no more subtle than ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ There is the side of good and the side of evil.”

this is a moronic idea (not your idea tomasinojones, ebert's idea)--"if you're a christian..." It's like saying "if you're black, you'll really like "boyz in the hood" or "if you're a klansman, you'll really like romper stomper". You don't judge a film based on the viewpoint of a biased interest group--Christians are going to like any film that portrays jesus in the way THEY want to see him betrayed (as the unquestioning martyr) and hate any film that deviates from it (i.e. "last temptation of christ")

it's no surprise on the hate mail for the writer defending the atheist. fundamentalist christian types (and most modern christians, as far as i'm concerned) have completely lost touch with what jesus was about & what his principles were. plain and simple--christ wan't a conservative. and he didn't condone death threats for someone speaking their mind.

but let's not get dragged into theological debate, because that's exactly the point of films like these. get people enraged & engaged in discussion, and all that does is give the "jesus gang" and the church more publicity. if we judged this film as a film, nothing more and nothing less, this thread would fizzle out pretty quickly.

I hate any kind of art that creates such easy dichotomies--and they're in essence propaganda, because that's the point of propaganda: easy black & whites, good & bads, heroes and villans. It justifies a lot of bad behavior like blind hatred and "ends justify the means" kind of stuff. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work like the movies, but films that show this only serve to prepare people to not have to question real-world scenarios in depth.

I don't think a "mass cultural" experience is in anyway a "natural" event. they're a contrived occurrence, and actually pretty far from man's natural inclination to be a solitary thinker/actor.

There's a long thread about this on I Love Everything ("Mel Gibson, Christian Crusader" or something), but the upshot is severalfold:

1) There's nothing inherently heretical about mystical revelations, no.

2) It wouldn't matter. Mel's a traditionalist Catholic, a member of a minor sect which has separated from the Roman Catholic Church and has elected its own popes in lieu of those provided by Rome. The Catholic Church has as much interest in them as it has in Presbyterians or Seventh-Day Adventists; traditionalists just happen to keep the word "Catholic" in their name.

Damn....and I was looking so forward to seeing him burned at the stake.

Yeah, as long as they're not coming from that little heathen Harry Potter!

And don't worry Buddha, Mel may not burn on the stake, but he'll burn somewhere else for his crappy movies!

Only with Ebert could a four-star review be considered not taking that big of a stand.

Good point!

Also, amateur!st, i'd like to hear more about your concern over the french audience reception to "passion", especially inregards to the anti-semitism (which i thought might be an issue) and catholicism (which i didn't think would be an issue).

Maybe I'm giving them too much credit (could it have something to do with having the last name "blanchard"?) but i figured the average french audience would be a bit more discerning than U.S. audiences in terms of the films quality and ideas expressed. am i wrong?

of course, i always get idyllic views of france 1968 with theaters packed to see godard films, so i really don't know how the french cinema audience operates.

Apparently, Mel put all these wacky restrictions on distributors. They couldn't change the poster, he was charging 2x the normal rate for prints, etc. The guy who is distributing it (I forget his name) is a good pal of Rupert Murdoch.

Curious to see the reaction in France (and the rest of Europe actually).

I found the book by that German nun that Mel based a lot of the film on -- there is LOADS of anti-Semitic sentiment in there!

i'm just waiting for the Wendy's kids meals "passion" action figures--"Jesus with Retractable Crucifixion Nails!"

Patent pending, patent pending, patent pending....

certainly it will be greeted with a lot of protest in paris

but paris is not all of france, and there is a lot of intense religious and other converatism here, and of course a history of anti-semitism. recent incidents as well.

Well, maybe the ressurection had more clout...