THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
09-05-04
I had meant to get a review of this movie up after I saw it last February but one thing lead to another and it didn't happen. Now that the Passion of The Christ is out on DVD this week it is a good time to do it now.
Like any Hollywood production covering Biblical topics, the Passion is a mixed blessing. On the positive side, it could be beneficial to non saved people to see some of what Jesus went through. The dialogue between Jesus and Pontius Pilate was true to the Biblical narrative as well.
Unless you were stranded on a desert island, you know that this movie was produced by Mel Gibson, the ultra traditional Catholic, and many of his biases come through loud and clear in this movie. We find the apostles calling the virgin Mary "Mother." A clear reference to her position in the Roman Catholic Church as the "Mother of God." Mary has a very prominent role throughout the movie. The personification of evil in this movie, a.k.a., "Satan" was played by a masculine looking and sounding female and many images associated with this, including the demons tormenting Judas and the baby creature Satan was holding, look to have come out of Dante's Inferno rather than the accurate Biblical account.
Like many of Gibson's recent films, the Passion seems to be focused on a pain fetish. No question, Jesus underwent a lot of pain and suffering and all this can easily be identified with by a reading of the Gospels. It just seems that this was sensationalized to make a statement. An additional problem was that the movie featured subtitles because the script was entirely in Aramaic and Latin.
If I had known that Gibson lived an extravagant lifestyle with a $40 million private jet and vacations on private islands for $250,000 for a weekend, I'd have never paid the matinee ticket price of $5.00 to see this film. But, all in all, I still believe that with a Christian explanation, it could be helpful to the unsaved. Otherwise, I'd suggest the film "Jesus" by the Jesus Project from the Campus Crusade for Christ. Based solely on the Book of Luke. Also, the two DVD set "Matthew" is an excellent presentation taken word for word from the Book of Matthew.
My advice would be to skip the DVD and use the $20.00 to $30.00 you'd save by buying Bibles to distribute to widows and orphans or to feed the hungry.
In Jesus,
Bishop Paul