The Passion of the Christ
I wasn't planning to say anything about this movie. Many gallons of ink have been spilled on the subject already. But after seeing it last night, I still feel so unsettled. I was hoping it was just post-movie shock, and decided to sleep on it. This morning, however, I feel just as unsettled. I did not like this movie. I don't think it was a bad movie, I just didn't enjoy it. That might be because I was going for different reasons than most (to learn) and nothing in this film was edifying.
The Passion is not just graphic, it is downright gory. It was two hours of blood splattering all over the place, and that's pretty much all I'll remember about it. Many of my Catholic friends love the film. I think I understand and appreciate why. But for a non-Catholic agnostic sort of person like me, it was just not something I enjoyed.
And I'm finding it difficult to agree with the contention that the movie is not anti-Semitic in any way. I won't go as far as to call it anti-Semitic, but Jews are depicted horribly in this film. I did not leave angry at Pontius Pilate and the Romans or sensing that they were responsible for the crucifixion. It seemed to me that Pilate caved into the will of the Jewish mobs. Gibson makes it seem that the real culpability lies with them. The Jews are shown in such an unflattering light; there is a Satanic figure that appears in the crowds a couple of times among the Jews, and the faces of Jewish children in one scene morph into something Satanic . (Although I'm not Jewish, I'm finding myself thinking along similar lines as Charles Krauthammer.)
So put me in the unimpressed category. Too bad, because I really, really wanted to embrace this movie. I wanted to buy into what my like-minded friends and the commentators I respect have been saying and writing, but I cannot.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 4:07 PM
