MB
Much to the suspicion of my fellow theater-goers, I took twenty pages of notes during THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. I find that the notation I used the most was "MB," which euphemistic shorthand stood for "more beatings" of the Christ (James Caviezel). MB. MB. MB. MB.

Either by virtue of fortitude or defect of hard-heartedness, I didn't write "I want to throw up" until page eighteen. That was when the Roman soldiers nailed Jesus's hand to the cross, with a distinct *splat*, and blood spurted out like a gusher. Blood poured down the nails, through to the other side of the rough-hewn cross, and down into the dirt.

There is no danger of overstating the amount of gore in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Roger Ebert, an encyclopedia of cinema, called it the most violent movie he had ever seen. The agony that Jesus endures mounts so quickly that we lose our ability to wholly sympathize. I can't fathom what it feels like to be scourged by a cat-of-nine-tails for ten long minutes, or have thorns clubbed into my scalp, or nails driven through my outsteched palms and ankles. Gibson overruns my reference points
regarding pain so early in the film that for much of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, I could only marvel at how completely they had made up Jim Caviezel to look flayed. I mean, every inch of his body had a whip cut, bruise, or pool of blood. And people deride MONSTER for leaning too heavily on its makeup!

A Certain Type of Violence Lacking
And therein lies the fatal flaw of Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. While illustrating in unfliching detail the physical torments of the scourging and crucifiction, it largely omits the violence of the mind that Christ must have endured in his final hours. Far heavier than the 300-pound cross he carried up Golgotha must have been Christ's doubts about his own divinity, fate, and place in the world. Would he truly rise again? What would become of his ministry? What would death be like?

The film begins with promise in the garden of Gethsemene. Christ, shivering with sweat and fear, calls out for his Father to rise up and defend him. Clouds rush over the sky to blot out the light of the full moon. God will not protect His son. The devil (Rosalinda Celentano) hisses, "No-one can carry the full burden of sin." Then, "No-one. Never." She sends out a serpent to harry Christ. The serpent represents knowledge of Good and Evil, the temptation to play God and determine one's own fate in contravention of the divine will. Christ grinds its head under his heel. This scene, brief as it is, shows a basic understanding of the real drama of the Passion. The key to the Passion is that Christ always retained the power to get out of the situation. If, even in his last moment, he had so chosen, he could have gotten down from the cross and saved his own life. It must have been an extraordinary struggle to accept abuse and wracking pain when the slightest crook of his finger or mumbled word would have secured escape. THAT is the measure of the Passion, but after the scene at the Garden, Christ's resolve is never shown to waver, not an inch, until he cries out, on the cross, "Father, Father, why have you forsaken me?" If that line were optional, I'm pretty sure Gibson would have omitted it. The surest sign of Christ's humanity in the Gospels is his doubt, his anger, his regrets; but these THE PASSION minimizes and isolates in favor of a Christ who grits his teeth and takes one for the team, resigned as a rag-doll, passive as a man enduring a bear attack by playing dead. As Scorsese clearly understood in his LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, the most important battle during the Passion was between the part of Christ that believed in ressurection and the very human part that wanted to stay with family, friends, and lovers. That internal scourging of the spirit too rarely surfaces in THE PASSION.

By Turns, Sublime and Obtuse
THE PASSION bizarrely strings together moments of theological obtuseness with those of sublime insight. Obtuse: Barabbas (Pietro Sarubbi) is so cartoonish, giggling and chortling obscenely when chosen to be released over Christ that, as my colleague Ed Gonzalez of Slant Magazine points out, he seems to be channeling the Tasmanian devil. Sublime: When Simon of Cyrene (Jarreth J. Merz) carries the cross, Jesus helps him. They bear the load shoulder-to-shoulder. The joint assumption of the burden of the cross isn't in the Gospels, but accurately reflects the position of every Christian who undertakes suffering for her faith. Christ is with us.

Sublime: When Judas (Luca Lionello) is thrown the bag of silver, the blood money spills all over the stone floor, clattering and clanging, making Judas accutely aware of his sin in the moment of its commission. Obtuse: A gaggle of demented children chase Judas around the desert and goad him into suicide. A crow pecks out the eyes of the theif who taunts Christ from an adjacent cross. Wasn't the whole point of Christ's death to refrain from seeking payback? The movie often strains against its own putative message of love and forgiveness.

And finally, sublime: Flashback from the bloodied and beaten Jesus, broken in the flesh, to a scene at the last supper where he washed the feet of his disciples. His body is so whole, and that he ministers so humbly to the bodies of others, that our hearts break when we return to his current ruined state. Obtuse: Flashback to when Jesus prophesized, ala Ikea, the coming of high-backed dinner chairs; Mary (Maia Morgenstern) putting her head on the stone floor, with a pan down to the dungeon in which Christ is kept, as though the Blessed Mother were a dowser.

Gibson spoils the Pieta moment (the dead Christ in Mary's arms) with a long, almost loving shot of the bloody nails and thorns removed from Christ's body. Gibson reminds me of the title character from Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, a dictatorial nun who belittles the very real problems of her students by comparing them to Christ's as his hands "rip, rip, ripped" under his own weight on the cross. Weilding Christ's suffering as a cudgel, to impart shame and awaken guilt,
Gibson overplays his hand and loses the chance to inspire us with the totality of the sacrifice. Love gets lost.

Anti-Isms
The debate about THE PASSION has focused largely on its alleged biases. Having read all four of the Gospel accounts, I don't believe that Gibson added much in the way of anti-Semitism to them. (Aside from the devil stalking amongst the Jews as they watch the scourging and Christ's carrying of the cross). The Gospel writers, counterfactually, did absolve Pontius Pilate of guilt for killing Christ. The Gospels place the blame for the crucifiction squarely on his fellow Jews, particularly the head preist Caiphus, although the whole mob calls for Christ's crucifiction. Gibson's anti-semitism lies in his faithful and unquestioning reproduction of anti-semitic source materials, and his presentation of those libels as historically accurate. In this case, gospel truths simply aren't true.

I don't see much in the way of homophobia. Herod, who is presented as a mincing dandy, finds no fault with Christ. He orders that Christ be set free. And while the devil may be described as androgynous, I think the better term is sexless or inhuman. She has a face devoid of either the feminine or masculine, blank, pinched, without compassion. I don't doubt that Gibson is a homophobe based on his past directorial efforts -- I just don't see it in THE PASSION.

No, THE PASSION fails because it is a superficial and inappropriately triumphal account of one man's inner victory through defeat. As the resurrected Jesus prepares to leave his tomb, drums beat as though for the start of war. Though he makes a valiant effort from flawed premises, Gibson has too much belligerence in him to capture the Prince of Peace at what should be his and our most glorious moment.

-- Martin Scribbs

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