Passions....

I have a strong feeling that I'll be waiting for the DVD of The Passion of the Christ. Not that I'm not interested in the film, because I am, but I'm really not interested in taking it in as part of the religious spectacle the whole thing has become. I've just seen a news report about some guy who spent his entire savings, more than $42,000, buying up 6,000 tickets to the film. This is a kind of mindset that is so alien to me it might as well be coming from the natives of Rigel VII, and in any case, spiritual matters -- to the extent that I think much of them at all these days -- are really rather private to me. I really would rather not see this film in the company of people who, I suspect, are -- at least in large part -- the kinds of folks who aren't comfortable being Christians unless you know that they're Christians, and better ones than you. I just want to see the thing as a movie, and I doubt that's going to be possible anywhere other than my living room once it shows up at BlockBuster. (I wonder how many copies each store will have to stock to make good on that "Guaranteed In Stock" policy of theirs.)

Anyway, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, saying this:

"What Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of. That his film is superficial in terms of the surrounding message -- that we get only a few passing references to the teachings of Jesus -- is, I suppose, not the point. This is not a sermon or a homily, but a visualization of the central event in the Christian religion. Take it or leave it....[several grafs later]....It is a film about an idea. An idea that it is necessary to fully comprehend the Passion if Christianity is to make any sense. Gibson has communicated his idea with a singleminded urgency. Many will disagree. Some will agree, but be horrified by the graphic treatment. I myself am no longer religious in the sense that a long-ago altar boy thought he should be, but I can respond to the power of belief whether I agree or not, and when I find it in a film, I must respect it."

And Jeff Simon, film critic for The Buffalo News, gives the movie one star, saying this:

"The Passion of the Christ is as sadistic a film as I have ever sat through. (It couldn't possibly be less appropriate for children, by the way.) Even if you know and completely endorse Gibson's point - that Christians and non-Christians must know how very much torture and horror Jesus endured in his final hours for their sakes - you might still think his Passion is a kind of cinematic atrocity: i.e. a movie grotesquely unable to credit its audience with any imagination or decency whatsoever. In fact, the movie is like an accusation of unworthiness flung at the audience in rage and contempt....[several grafs later]....We're not talking here about one of Quentin Tarantino's vaguely mad living cartoons here; we're talking about a director who worships and loves his subject and wants every drop of that subject's blood on the audience's hands."

I find it interesting that here we have two completely different reactions from critics who aren't especially religious (at least, nothing in Simon's writing has ever led me to believe that he is particularly religious) differ so wildly. There is lots of talk in the country about how this film will affect the faithful, but not quite so much about how it will be seen by those outside the tradition. Roger Ebert looks at The Passion and sees a powerful statement of personal faith; Jeff Simon looks at it and sees the cinematic equivalent of a hair shirt.

Interesting times, these.

(And in one of those wonderful postscripts that life seems to dole out so often these days, I just had that godawful TV show Access Hollywood playing in the background -- because I was too lazy to get up and change channels after then 10:00 news -- and bless my soul if they didn't announce a feature later on the show about the animatronic crucified Jesus that was built by the film's special effects crew, with one of the effects people pointing out "We even had a breathing apparatus in the chest!" while the lower half of the screen bears the superimposed logo, "Robo Jesus!" It's nice to know that keeping our eye on the ball apparently isn't always a necessity, isn't it?)