I knew I hadn't just bough a cinema ticket when I saw one of the opening ads, in which some second-string Australian celebrities stood in front of the audience to harangue us into reading the New Testament. "It changed my life," each one said in succession. The screen darkened and left me writhing in embarrassment, wondering what kind of naked, bludgeoning propaganda I'd just let myself in for. Would this be like it was sitting through "Triumph of the Will", with the addition of the uncomfortable feeling that some of my fellow audience members might actually be taking it seriously, and lapping it all up?
Then there was a trailer for an upcoming feature, and I relaxed somewhat.
As it happens the film is very much like "Triumph of the Will"; perhaps closer to pure propaganda. Both films are great, in a curious, disturbing way. One key difference is that Leni Riefenstahl was a great director, performing well below her ability in "Triumph of the Will"; with "The Passion" we have a mediocre director performing above his. Gibson didn't really do a good job, objectively speaking, and by rights his film ought to be dreadful. But Gibson's very failings, each individually enough to sink a film, collectively transform his film into something marvellous. This was a complete fluke; but so what? I've recently seen "Cold Mountain", a right shocker of a film even if there was a lot of genuine artistry in its component parts. Why should I be kinder to IT, just because its badness was something of an unfortunate accident? The mirror-image point applies to Gibson's film.
The controversy surrounding the film is pointless and silly but not quite too ludicrous to dismiss out of hand. This is NOT an anti-Semitic film; but it's worthwhile looking into why anyone thought it was. An obvious reason would be the scene early on, in which Jesus is captured and brought before the temple and we see a roomful of jeering, pantomime wicked Jews, not just acting broadly, but acting broadly in unison. The head priest makes some feeble snide comment at Jesus and it's as though everyone else in the room is a puppet controlled by the same set of strings, as they slap their thighs, flail their arms, bend at the waist and contort their faces into unnatural, apelike laughter. This effect is exaggerated by Gibson's two most obvious stylistic devices.
Firstly, his ridiculous overuse of slow motion. How slow is this film? I darted out to urinate at one point, halfway through Jesus's progression up Calvary; when I came back, he'd travelled perhaps three metres. Nobody in this film can be whipped, feel remorse, be inspired, crawl in the dust, laugh, cry, walk across the room or pay thirty pieces of silver without it happening lliiikke tthhiiisss
Secondly, there's the way Gibson uses Aramaic and Latin. You have to applaud his decision to film what is essentially a bilingual story in the correct, original languages. It's obviously the right decision. But this isn't a standard subtitled release. Watch a French film, and you'll see people talking with apparent naturalism in French, with the subtitles doing their best to translate with, inevitably, the odd word left out here and there, or the odd phrase condensed or simplified or simply unavailable for translation. But because this story was So Very Important, Gibson arranged things so that NOTHING was lost in translation. This means that people speak slowly, simply, emphatically, sparsely, as though they know they're acting for our benefit and want to make sure they say nothing that will be lost in translation or fail to be caught by the slower readers in the audience. This strange mode of speaking is unnerving after a while.
The result is, the Jews are like no people on Earth we can recognise. They come across as yet another exotic tribe from the Old Testament, with no obvious connection to anyone living to day; more than that, they aren't even like human beings as we know them. They seem to be aware they're living within the pages of the Bible.
But if this is true of the Jews is this is equally true of the Romans. More so, in fact. Gibson's sadistic, buffoonish, verismo-operatic Roman guards whip and mock Christ as though they've been heartened by the pantomime acting the Jewish extras have managed to get away with and wish to do them one better.
This is all very irritating at first, but the end result is to heighten the atmosphere and set the ground rules for what is, after all, a grand, dark supernatural fantasy. This is where Gibson's narrowness of vision is actually an asset. The story of Christ's sacrifice ON OUR BEHALF is one of the most ridiculous myths ever told. Tell the full story and it's hard to avoid asking questions like: "But why didn't God just repeal the eternal damnation he'd condemned us all to, WITHOUT putting himself through this vicarious torture first? He's omnipotent, right? And what possible connection could his decision to allow himself to be whipped have to his decision not to fry you and I for eternity, anyway?" Gibson vanquishes such awkward questions by simply presenting us the pivotal moment of the Christian myth, in all its gory detail, and letting the rest of the fantasy fall into vague shape by itself.
All that remains to object to is the final insert shot of Christ rising from the dead, as though he's about to stalk the land like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator". But that moment can't erase or negate the strange, seemingly flawed, accidentally magnificent film that precedes it.
Then there was a trailer for an upcoming feature, and I relaxed somewhat.
As it happens the film is very much like "Triumph of the Will"; perhaps closer to pure propaganda. Both films are great, in a curious, disturbing way. One key difference is that Leni Riefenstahl was a great director, performing well below her ability in "Triumph of the Will"; with "The Passion" we have a mediocre director performing above his. Gibson didn't really do a good job, objectively speaking, and by rights his film ought to be dreadful. But Gibson's very failings, each individually enough to sink a film, collectively transform his film into something marvellous. This was a complete fluke; but so what? I've recently seen "Cold Mountain", a right shocker of a film even if there was a lot of genuine artistry in its component parts. Why should I be kinder to IT, just because its badness was something of an unfortunate accident? The mirror-image point applies to Gibson's film.
The controversy surrounding the film is pointless and silly but not quite too ludicrous to dismiss out of hand. This is NOT an anti-Semitic film; but it's worthwhile looking into why anyone thought it was. An obvious reason would be the scene early on, in which Jesus is captured and brought before the temple and we see a roomful of jeering, pantomime wicked Jews, not just acting broadly, but acting broadly in unison. The head priest makes some feeble snide comment at Jesus and it's as though everyone else in the room is a puppet controlled by the same set of strings, as they slap their thighs, flail their arms, bend at the waist and contort their faces into unnatural, apelike laughter. This effect is exaggerated by Gibson's two most obvious stylistic devices.
Firstly, his ridiculous overuse of slow motion. How slow is this film? I darted out to urinate at one point, halfway through Jesus's progression up Calvary; when I came back, he'd travelled perhaps three metres. Nobody in this film can be whipped, feel remorse, be inspired, crawl in the dust, laugh, cry, walk across the room or pay thirty pieces of silver without it happening lliiikke tthhiiisss
Secondly, there's the way Gibson uses Aramaic and Latin. You have to applaud his decision to film what is essentially a bilingual story in the correct, original languages. It's obviously the right decision. But this isn't a standard subtitled release. Watch a French film, and you'll see people talking with apparent naturalism in French, with the subtitles doing their best to translate with, inevitably, the odd word left out here and there, or the odd phrase condensed or simplified or simply unavailable for translation. But because this story was So Very Important, Gibson arranged things so that NOTHING was lost in translation. This means that people speak slowly, simply, emphatically, sparsely, as though they know they're acting for our benefit and want to make sure they say nothing that will be lost in translation or fail to be caught by the slower readers in the audience. This strange mode of speaking is unnerving after a while.
The result is, the Jews are like no people on Earth we can recognise. They come across as yet another exotic tribe from the Old Testament, with no obvious connection to anyone living to day; more than that, they aren't even like human beings as we know them. They seem to be aware they're living within the pages of the Bible.
But if this is true of the Jews is this is equally true of the Romans. More so, in fact. Gibson's sadistic, buffoonish, verismo-operatic Roman guards whip and mock Christ as though they've been heartened by the pantomime acting the Jewish extras have managed to get away with and wish to do them one better.
This is all very irritating at first, but the end result is to heighten the atmosphere and set the ground rules for what is, after all, a grand, dark supernatural fantasy. This is where Gibson's narrowness of vision is actually an asset. The story of Christ's sacrifice ON OUR BEHALF is one of the most ridiculous myths ever told. Tell the full story and it's hard to avoid asking questions like: "But why didn't God just repeal the eternal damnation he'd condemned us all to, WITHOUT putting himself through this vicarious torture first? He's omnipotent, right? And what possible connection could his decision to allow himself to be whipped have to his decision not to fry you and I for eternity, anyway?" Gibson vanquishes such awkward questions by simply presenting us the pivotal moment of the Christian myth, in all its gory detail, and letting the rest of the fantasy fall into vague shape by itself.
All that remains to object to is the final insert shot of Christ rising from the dead, as though he's about to stalk the land like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator". But that moment can't erase or negate the strange, seemingly flawed, accidentally magnificent film that precedes it.