FULL DISCLOSURE: I'VE watched only 7/8ths of "The Passion of the Christ." No, I didn't get there late, and I didn't walk out early. I just obstructed my view of the bottom of the screen so that I couldn't read the subtitles.
Why would I do this? Well, when Mel Gibson first announced his intention to make "The Passion," he said he decided to film it in the original languages and wanted to release it without subtitles, letting the images speak for themselves. He later changed his mind, citing a concern to make the film accessible to those who aren't Christian, and the need show the exact words of the Jewish high priest to combat accusations of anti-Semitism. But I was still interested in seeing the film he had in his mind, that one that had less in common with a century of cinematic Jesuses and more like the great paintings and icons of old, the ones whose colors, poses, and expressions spoke volumes about the gospel story without using a word. To a large degree, this approach worked wonderfully.
The film is essentially a moving painting, or, at least, a series of related paintings like Claude Monet's haystacks. Unlike a typical gallery, however, where you can move at your own pace, Gibson tells you how long you're going to look at each part of the series. "Hold your attention here," he says, as Jesus is being whipped to shreds, as Mary gazes painfully at her son, as Peter denies his Lord. "Don't rush past it like nearly every other Jesus movie, trying to fit his life into a few hours. Contemplate, examine, search. Be in the moment."
If nothing else, "The Passion" opens up a space to approach Jesus is a less theoretical and a more human, tangible way. The months-long controversy over the film, which debated theological concerns of Jewish, Catholics, and Protestants, had prepped me to dissect the film's inferences -- and while that's worth doing at some point, upon first viewing I was simply drawn into the actual physical existence of God in human flesh. In some ways he seemed so foreign, speaking in an unintelligible language and seeing visions of the spirit world. And yet there were moments of playful joy (splashing his mother with water), defiant compassion (saving the life of the adultress), and unimaginable pain (pretty much the rest of the movie). I don't know that any portrayal of Jesus could ever fully capture both his humanity and divinity, but, at the least, "The Passion" finds a tension between his commonality and his otherness.
Suffering makes up the bulk of the movie -- to its detriment, in fact, given how skimpy the resurrection scene is. But if "The Passion" tells me little about hope and redemption, it is unrelenting in forcing me to think about pain. "Take up your cross daily and follow me," Jesus says in the gospel of Luke, and Gibson is unwilling to let this remain metaphorical. Over and over we watch Jesus struggle with the cross, dropping it several times, until at last Simon is pulled from the crowd to carry it for him. I got the point: I'm a wimp. In 21st-century America, I worry about a bruised ego, a painful relationship, or a wounded sensibility. Whatever happened with being such a threat to the establishment that people plot my death -- as happened to nearly all the disciples? Whatever happened to risking real pain in order to reach out in love? If there is one area "The Passion" convicted me most, it's that life cannot be lived by hedging one's bets: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
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