James Caviezel who plays Jesus Christ in the movie directed by Mel Gibson.

What I experienced was a powerful, very graphic and definitely emotive piece of film making, which most certainly offers considerable food for though. And as for the prior criticisms I cannot give much weight to any of them.

Firstly the allegations and furore that this is an anti Semitic movie. This charge was to the forefront of on my mind as I sat through the 2 hrs and 40 odd minutes of the film. In the aftermath, reflecting on both the movie and the allegation, I wondered firstly, why is it that there is just one race of people who appear to have a word for prosecution directly against them, and why for over two thousand years has there been amongst them, some who are primed to trawl the allegation out for even the slightest critical view of the actions of some of their number? Down through history there have been incidences of vast genocide by, amongst others, the armies of Alexander the Great, The Vandals, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, The Crusaders, The Spanish Conquistadors and the other European Empires. In the last 60 odd years there have been genocides on varying scales carried out by followers of Stalin, The Japanese, The Chinese, The Khmer Rouge, The Rwandans Hutus, The Serbs and more. Yet one race of people, because of an evil holocaust perpetuated against them almost 60 years ago, seem to feel that they have a monopoly on genocide that grants them special credence and some kind of higher divine dispensation or rightful immunity from any form of scrutiny of possibly faults amongst some of their number. True there are some very nasty portrayals of Jews in Mel Gibson’s movie, The high priests in particular but also the mob and rabble they manage to raise up and bribe out in the middle of the night, come out particularly badly in this movie, but then this was always the case also, in the four Gospels on which this movie is based. Out of the advance criticisms, I didn’t expect to encounter any positive portrayals of Jews in this movie, yet they are considerable. The few high priests who council caution and question the charges being levelled against Jesus (Who are swallowed up and chased away by the mob for their efforts!), Simon of Cyrene who is called in to carry the cross for Jesus and for his trouble get abused and name called in tones that could be straight out of ‘Schindlers List’, The young woman who comforts her own daughter before she goes to bring Jesus a drink of water after he has fallen for the third time.

Of course if one wants to be hyper critical (Or sensitive, depending on your level of political correctness!) the Romans don’t come out of this movie at all well either, but I heard no allegations of anti Latinism or howls of horror and protest from the Italians (Or any other Latinos!). The centurions that take a perverse pleasure and a great deal of entertainment, as well as pouting masculine rivalry, in dealing out the scourging to Jesus, whilst they vie to flay strips of skin off his torso, are deeply disturbing in the same way as the most sadistically portrayed prison or concentration camp guards from a host of previous movies. Mind you this movie did reflect something that I’ve always been inclined to feel myself yet which I’ve rarely seen portrayed in other movies, namely that Pontius Pilate was, by and large, a good man caught in a very difficult situation, which admittedly he wasn’t brave or strong enough to stand up to, despite his best efforts at compromise. He did near everything he could to release Jesus, stopping just short of provoking a riot and finally washing his hands of the affair and all apparently at the instigation of or for the love of his wife who felt deeply at the wrong being perpetrated.

I have little need to outline the plot of this movie. A thousand gospel stories and many previous movies have already paved the way. It begins with Jesus’ agony of waiting for his impending death in the garden of Gethsemane and follows through, pretty much word for word, to the crucifixion and resurrection in the tomb with occasional flashbacks to his childhood, his works as a carpenter, his sermon on the mount, the last supper and his rescue of Mary Magdalene amongst other scenes. One of the wonderful things about it is that it is all in Aramaic (The actual language of Jesus and Palestine/Galilee 2000 years ago) and Latin with subtitles, so that even that most dramatic of cries from Good Friday "Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani?" (Father, father why have you forsaken me?) is rendered in its apparent original.

The movie carries the distinct imprint of Mel Gibson and makes more than a few nods to Braveheart, from its slo-mo sequences, to the wonderfully haunting soundtrack and the graphic-ness of the gore, right down to the squelch of nails penetrating flesh and the spurting of blood. More than once in this movie you will find yourself physically wincing from the sheer vividness of what is portrayed on screen, You sense the pain of the passion which I think is the ultimate intention of Gibson and an indication of his brilliance in crafting this movie.

This is not a pleasant movie nor an especially attractive one, thought there are moments of truly moving beauty in it, in the portrayal of the tenderness of the Christ, The love of a mother, The pieta at the foot of the cross borrowed from Michelangelo himself and the horror of both Judas and Peter in their moments of weakness. I don’t know whether it will make a better person of those who see it or whether it will bring people closer to God, but it certainly projects all the pain, determination and an indication of the immense love it must have taken for a man to give up his own live for the sins of all men, two thousand odd years ago and, if only for that alone, it’s worth seeing.

4 stars out of 5