Mel Gibson
The Passion

DISPASSIONATELY.

Mel Gibson said about the film's backstage: "There were many unusual things happening on set: beautiful things, for example, men who were healed from illnesses; some blind who regained their sight, some deaf their hearing. Another, struck by lightning while we were filming the crucifixion scene, miraculously got up and walked away."

Now, with all the respect I might have for the character Gibson, I must say that his "becoming the interpreter" of the content of a film that, however well-made, is still an interpretation (albeit a questionable one) of a historical event, and his "embodiment" as a sort of cinematic half-director/messiah is truly embarrassing and annoying.

In this "The Passion" (2004) the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth are narrated, when, after the Last Supper, he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, resists the temptations of a Satan/Rosalinda Celentano (!), is betrayed by Judas, then captured and taken to Jerusalem where he is tried and sentenced to crucifixion. From there on, the film becomes a real "calvary" both for the poor Jesus reduced to a "horror mask" bruised and progressively unrecognizable and for us unknowing spectators who have to endure almost 45 minutes of lashings, violence, insults drowned in liters and liters of blood everywhere: therefore, is blood the metaphor of Christ's blood that irrigates everywhere?!

The fact is that this obsessive "insistence" on violence, on the most sensational and scandalous aspect of the entire martyrdom (if we want, a secondary aspect to the ultimate meaning of the Calvary) gives us more than a hint of annoyance (and quite a few moments of boredom) because it diverts attention to a rather crude and "earthly" scale of values mixing Hollywood sensationalism with the transposition of one of the highest and most merciful pages of the Gospels. The sacred and the profane, someone would say.

Someone else says that in reality, Christ suffered much worse (it seems that to Saint Bridget Jesus revealed having received almost 6 thousand blows, did he count them? Who knows!) but in my view, this is not the way to handle such a significant theme (in my opinion, the masterpiece will always be P.P. Pasolini's transposition of "The Gospel According to St. Matthew").
The best thing, if we want to praise something, in my opinion, was the introduction of the use of the original language (subtitled) necessarily leaving the images the task of "guiding" the film.

A film that remains interesting in its "physical and earthly" interpretation of the Passion, at least an original voice in which no one had yet ventured (however, I prefer how the whole chapter was better balanced in Scorsese's film "The Last Temptation of Christ" another beautiful film).
This film, when all is said and done, emanates very little sacredness. A nod of appreciation, however, goes to the screenplay (the real backbone of such a film almost devoid of dialogue) and the soundtrack also well-reviewed by Mariaelena here.

A film that certainly hits the stomach but struggles to immerse us within, in the more spiritual and sacred part of our being, except for the sense of guilt and self-punishment it instills in us throughout the duration of the film (let us not forget that it is precisely on the "sense of guilt" and the "redemption of one's sins" that the entire Christian doctrine is founded and built).

The questions we ask are: Was all that blood needed to make us feel the pain by proxy? Was it necessary to "physically externalize" to make us "shake internally"? Are special effects generally not a substitute for a lack of idea, or are they perhaps the very idea of this film? I leave these and other questions to you and your opinions.

A film that is debated and still debated but, in the final analysis, and contrary to Mel Gibson, certainly does not make me shout "Miracle".