You know what's great? The Passion of the Christ

You know what's great? The Passion of the Christ. I'm sure people would imagine I'm being ironic with that statement, but I assure all 3 of you reading this that I couldn't be more serious. I mean, I hate organized religion and am an atheist as much as the next sane, rational person is, but goddamn if I don't love me the story of Jesus Christ. I first became aware of my affinity for it when my parents took me, a 15 year old metal head and Slayer devotee, kicking and screaming to a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. This wasn't some crap dinner theater go 'round mind you. This was at the historic Orpheum theater in downtown Mpls. with Carl Andersen and Ted Neely reprising their respective roles of Judas and Jesus from the Norman Jewison film adaptation. I enjoyed the outdated hippie/funk score in an slightly cynical fashion, but the Tim Rice lyrics blew me away with their heady mixture of winking, knowing sarcasm and tortured, dark poetry. Ted Neely hitting the high note "whyyyyyyyyyy!!!" during the apex of The Garden of Gethsemane was then, and is still to this day the most overwhelming and profoundly moving live musical moment I've experienced, and I've seen Sunny Day Real Estate, Dimmu Borgir AND Ice-T.

It doesn't bother me that Mel glosses over the teachings and philosophy of Jesus to focus primarily on those last torturous hours of his existence. I know the story of Jesus (better than most Christians I've met I might add), so I have no need for yet another origin story. Most importantly though, The Passion of the Christ is a deeply personal artistic and spiritual statement from Mel Gibson. It is what he feels his religion to be about and watching it the other night on bluray, it struck me just how ballsy the film is and what a catastrophic failure it could have been. This is a film seemingly designed to sicken the non-believing segment of the populace while challenging the sincerity of the supposedly devout. It is a complex assault on the mind, heart, ears and eyes that clearly comes from a film maker as interested in punishing himself for his transgressions as he is in castigating his audience for either their disbelief or (perhaps in his eyes even worse) middling, lukewarm devotion. Before tumbling down a theological rabbit hole that will inevitably lead to confronting the sticky anti-Semitism questions and salacious tabloid shenanigans Heir Direktor has found himself mired in for the last 5 years, I will now detour back to the road I'm most comfortable travelling: appraising the film as a piece of art and its effect on me over the course of multiple viewings spread across several years.

It opens in the garden of Gethsemane on Jesus wrestling with his fear of impending imprisonment, torture and death. He pleads skyward with his silent father to let this unfortunate task pass from him, all the while sweating blood and being coldly questioned and taunted by what is unquestioningly my favorite cinematic interpretation of Satan. This opening is pure Universal horror with moonlit skies and oppressive mist drifting over the proceedings like a funeral shroud. From the first frame, Mel isn't fucking around here. This is going to be dark, scary and decidedly serious. It's filmed like a slow motion nightmare, the characters move as if through glue, inexorably toward their predetermined fate. Of the many brilliant decisions Mel makes, the choice to present it in Aramaic and Latin is perhaps the most fortuitous. It lends credence to the ancient world he's created and bathes the dialog in a mysterious, menacing musicality.

The horrific tone doesn't let up as we witness Judas hounded to suicide by bestial phantoms and demonic, deformed children. The familiar chords are struck as Simon denies him 3 times, Caiaphas takes Jesus to Pilate, Pilate sends him to Herod, then Herod back to Pilate. Jesus' stoic acceptance of his purposeful fate is inspiring and heartbreaking to watch as he's transported back and forth, beaten and shackled to answer meaningless questions from powerless public servants. Pilate, in an attempt to appease the bloodthirsty mob, sentences Jesus to a whipping, that escalates into a scourging that can only be described as the most effective portrayal of mans inhumanity to man ever put to film. As I previously stated, I'm a non-believer, but I openly wept during this sequence in the theater, seated next to a matronly septuagenarian similarly overcome by pity and shocked sadness. As the scene begins, you can feel your stomach drop, as if having reached the precipice of a roller-coaster, about to descend into the bowels of hellish atrocity. Yes, it is pornographic in its depiction of violence, but it serves the story. Hell, it IS the point of the story.

A word on Caviezel here: His portrayal of Christ is definitive. It's a staggering work of control, charisma, athleticism and power. He exudes both otherworldly magnetism and earthy reality. He is someone who, with a look, you would gladly follow into hell. His face fills the frame with beseeching authority, daring you to look and daring you to look away. That he wasn't even nominated shows the Oscars for the shallow, image based scam that they are.

As we move onto the stations of the cross, the film heads to what I believe to be its defining moment and certainly one of the most indelible images ever captured by a camera. Mary, who has thus far been grim and desultory on the periphery of this filial holocaust is now trying to reach her son as he carries his cross to Golgotha. She can not bear to see him this way, but then he falls in slow motion and we cut to a flashback of him falling as a child and her running to his aid. She runs to him and the two time frames are juxtaposed. A mother's love is forever. She's by his side now, her son hideously destroyed by the hatred of his fellow man. He touches her face and reassures her with the line, "See mother, I make all things new.". He embraces his burden and RISES in the most devastating image of Christ I've ever seen in any medium. Every time I see the film, I am flattened by this scene. It absolutely destroys me. The subsequent journey and ultimately, crucifixion, is like falling into oblivion as the torture and indignity of it all finally gives way to his expiration and our release from this arduous, yet rewarding ordeal.

This is a film of great beauty and great horror, usually working in tandem. The camera work is fluid and gorgeous, the actors perfectly cast and impeccably directed to superlative performances. The score, a tonally fluctuating masterwork and the images a display of endlessly inventive creativity and painterly perfection. I mean sure, nobody ever wants to watch it with me, but it isn't the first time I've been alone on my devotional appreciation of a film. Maybe I'm just a closet Christian as my wife suggests or I simply have an abiding love for martyrs and the poetry of brutality. Either way, The Passion of the Christ is a marvelous film that I will be watching, studying and being emotionally exhausted by for the rest of my life.