The Black Republican

I saw The Passion of the Christ yesterday afternoon.

Steve had suggested after the movie that I would be posting a response here soon. I simply couldn't bring myself to do it when I got home. The movie left me physically drained and numb, and I ended up going to bed at the terribly early hour of 11:00 pm
(early for me, at least). Even though I'm supposed to be on my way to work right now, I had to sit down and write a few lines, especially since I've been thinking of little else.

I forced myself to read the worst of the reviews linked from the movie's page at Yahoo! The breadth and depth of vapidity I found there was stunning. I've read a few of the better reviews, but there's no point to it - you simply cannot get anything meaningful out of a review of this film, except from those who tell you they can't tell you what to think about this film.

You may think, after all the massive hype, the charges and countercharges, the endless media nattering (mea culpa, by the way), that you already know what's in store for you in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which finally opens today.

You don't. This is a movie so singular, so intense, so overwhelming that it simply has to be experienced. And nothing can prepare you for how brutal, how shocking, how awash in blood and pain Gibson has made his version of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

"The Passion" is so radically different from the normal moviegoing experience that people are going to have wildly varying reactions to it (the recent debate over anti-Semitism is just an inkling of the chasms of perception). A devout evangelical Christian, a Jew, an agnostic, a Muslim, a lukewarm believer may react so differently they might just as well have seen different movies.

There are a few things I would like to say, not in review, but in analysis.

First, to Peggy Noonan: Don't fret about having your sources change their story. The pope really did say, "It is as it was." I have no doubt.

Second, the one word that has been rolling through my head is: hideous. Some idiotic mother brought her three pre-teen children to the movie and sat them in front of me. (Thankfully, they were a few feet to one side, so I was not totally distracted throughout the film.) That woman should be arrested for child abuse. This may be something that people must experience, but they must be adults when they do. This message simply cannot be processed by less than a mature adult intellect (as many of the less-than-favorable reviews will attest).

Third: I won't comment on the religious meaning except to say that the reviewers who can't grasp the message don't get the message. Another friend who saw the movie with me said as we stood up, "I didn't think it would end there." My response was: "I doesn't." This movie makes you take the leap of faith, by processing what you've seen and filling in the blanks yourself. It's artistry is displayed by leaving most of the canvass blank for you to paint yourself.

Lastly.... I spent more than a little part of the film thinking of Charles Johnson, of all people. There is one scene in particular that evokes memories of the aftermath of many a bus bombing in Israel, as the two Marys dutifully carry out their responsibilities as good Jews. You can see anti-Semitism in this movie. I didn't. I won't.

So he said to them, "Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."
- Luke 20, 25

We must forgive. But we must not forget.

UPDATE: My hopefulness for good feelings at LGF seems to have been misplaced. Meanwhile, the best of all commentaries about the film so far comes from: a Mormon.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Someone has said what I've been waiting to see someone dare say:

If, having seen and endured the film, Christians are able in a fresh way to wonder at the vault of the Sistine Chapel, if they can humbly return to their churches to participate in the spoken and sacramentally enacted Word, then Gibson's Passion will have proven to be something even better than what it certainly is: the best movie ever made about Jesus Christ.

As for the charges of anti-Semitism, the columnists at First Things provide a "why" to the confusing mass-contradiction of the various critical reviews:

But all of this makes Gibson's Passion nearly the opposite of the arcane and politically fraught tradition of the passion play. Such performances were often staged to incite the audience to choose sides, to 'save' the integrity and honor of Christ by constituting a kind of party against Judas, the Jews, and the mob in Pilate's courtyard. Had Gibson used the power of film to give this twisted but all-too-human political stereotype a new lease on life, concerns about the film stirring up anti-Judaism or hostility against nonbelievers would be justified. To his credit, however, Gibson denies the audience any shred of political or religious triumph, or, for that matter, defeat. Even a viewer who already knows and religiously believes in the final outcome of the story must struggle to keep watching, which is humiliating in its own right. There might be reason for scholars and religious authorities to raise questions about Gibson's synthesizing of distinct scriptural accounts of the passion, or about his use of extra-biblical iconography. But it is hard to imagine anyone coming out of Gibson's movie with an appetite for a religiously politicized passion. If anything, this is the definitive post-passion-play passion.