There have been statements, from Gibson and from his supporters, that The Passion of the Christ is distinguished by its fidelity to the gospels, a claim which seems disingenuous.Ms. Hawker concludes her review with these comments:
Apart from the difficulty of being faithful to a set of accounts that don't always agree, much of the film is concerned with imagining precisely what's left out of the gospels - graphic detail of physical punishment and suffering.
And there are numerous additions, above and beyond dramatisation and interpretation.
There's a punitive scene involving a crow pecking out the eyes of one of the criminals crucified alongside Jesus.
A single drop of water (a divine tear?) is shown falling from the skies after Jesus's death, in a vertiginous shot from the heights.
Gibson inserts a demonic figure, seen only to Jesus, who addresses and undermines him, and who turns up, at the end, with a weird-looking baby swaddled in black clothing. (In the credits, this figure is called Satan, and is played by an androgynous-looking woman, Rosalinda Celentano).
Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov) is given a wife, Claudia (Claudia Gerini), a compassionate figure who pleads with her husband not to condemn Jesus.
Yet it is hard to imagine what elements of this film would inspire conversion, or comfort believers.I heard one reviewer say that the violence of the movie reaches Monty Pythonesque levels.
The sustained, insistent violence, over more than two hours, becomes distancing and repetitive, with moments of excess that border on absurdity.
It is, in the end, not much more than a grim and perplexing test of endurance.
If you want to see a good movie about Jesus, try The Gospel According to Saint Matthew by Italian Communist and homosexual Pier Paolo Pasolini. It burns with Jesus' righteous anger at sin and injustice, and is much truer to the text.
Update
No sooner do I end this post, I Google Pasolini and find this review by Richard Nilsen in The Arizona Republic which concludes with this:The best movie Jesus: In 1966, Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini created The Gospel According to St. Matthew, an austere black-and-white film that lets the words speak for themselves without tricking them up with cinematic wizardry. Using only amateur actors found in the Sicilian villages where Pasolini shot, his film is one of the most moving and believable ever. Perhaps it takes a homosexual Communist Italian to find the right tone for the Gospel.I can't make the claim that Pasolini's movie is the best, since I haven't seen most of the ones Mr. Nilson lists. Grounds for further research . . .
