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The words excruciating and crucifixion are related. It's easy to see why when you read the reviews of Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ.

Critics find themselves divided. Some applaud the portrayal of Jesus' final twelve hours while others are throwing rotten tomatoes. Nevertheless, they would all agree that watching it is an excruciating experience. For many, seeing Jesus' torments vividly, graphically and relentlessly illustrated only serves to heighten their appreciation of Christ's love for humankind. For others, Gibson's hyper-realistic violence is gratuitous, an act of cruelty carried out upon the audience by an agenda-driven, heavy-handed, insensitive director.

In this column, I first shared news about the film on August 19, 2002. There has been news on an almost weekly basis ever since. Film Forum readers even shared their suggestions on how to make a good Jesus movie. It has been a long and painful process, monitoring the debates, the mudslinging, the defense, and the speculation. So it is with a sense of relief that I am glad to finally share a few thoughts on the finished work, and links to the responses of other critics as well.

Now that I've seen the film, I find myself with a foot in each of the two critics' camps. The Passion of The Christ has commendable strengths, but it has flaws as well. Gibson's film is not The Fifth Gospel—it is a work of art by a human being. Thus, it is not sacrilegious to point out the work's weaknesses. (Critics who consider it imperfect are sure to receive angry letters, as though their comments about artistry are directed at the gospel itself instead of the way this version is illustrated.)

Gibson includes the basic events of Christ's last hours, and adheres remarkably well to the dialogue and descriptions in the Gospels. Thus, his film is powerful. How could any decent account of the events on Calvary fail to move audiences? The way the director and star of Braveheart weaves together Christ's suffering with flashbacks to earlier events creates interesting juxtapositions. At each stage of Jesus' torture, we are reminded that he prophesied these very events and that he willingly and courageously gave himself up to them. With every new stage in his anguish, we are reminded that these punishments come as a response to his teachings about love and turning the other cheek. Each blow struck by the enemy is the antithesis of the sort of power the Son of God endorsed.

But Gibson's lack of attention to other chapters in Christ's life does indeed pose challenges to viewers—especially those who do not know the gospel story. We receive only glimpses of the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper. We are given no reference to how Christ entered the world. Each audience member is left to seek out the missing pieces and put together what it all means. Will they? That depends. It is possible that the anxiety and exhaustion they experience viewing the film will give some of them an aversion to exploring Christ's life any more deeply. Others may be inspired to investigate.

In The Passion, the path from the garden of Gethsemane to the cross is such a marathon of bloodshed—Jesus is beaten and bloodied even before he leaves the garden—that I found myself a bit dizzy from the violence only an hour into the film. It became harder and harder to focus on what the director was trying to reveal concerning Christ's teachings and his love.

Any decent human being portrayed in physical agony will draw an audience's sympathies. I left wanting to know more about this suffering figure. I wanted to see more about what made him distinct. Seeing so much brutality, my emotional responses went numb, and I was merely watching, wondering what kind of body cast the actor Jim Caveziel was wearing in order to make it appear that barbed whips were ripping chunks out of his flesh. Endless cracks of the whips, the wearying mockery of the tormenters, and the numerous sequences that show Jesus collapsing in every imaginable way made me wish the film had a different editor.

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February (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48