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shiny objects

Friday, March 19, 2004


If you, gentle reader, ever take a single piece of my advice, let it be this:

Always wear a raincoat.


But should you choose to follow two pieces of my advice, let the second be:

Don't see The Passion of The Christ.


I mean it, man. Just don't do it. Now, I know some of you are feeling pretty smug right now, thinking "Oh, she just hates it because it has JEEBUS in it and she's a little heatheny turd." Well, you got half of it right, but the reason I hate the aforementioned film is because it is BAD CINEMA. The Last Temptation of Christ happens to be one of my favorites, so I know that a good Jesus movie can indeed be made. But let me tell you, Bub, this one ain't it.

For starters, I'll say what was good about it: excellent and incredibly atmospheric sets, soundtrack, and costumes. The original languages were a nice touch. I really appreciated the historical accuracy. Oh yeah, and I thought Gibson's interpretation of Satan was totally awsome. +2 for decent representation of evil forces.

That said, the film itself was far to "in media res" to be effective. It jumped way too quickly into Jesus's violent capture and subsequent torture for a non-Christian such as myself to connect emotionally with the character; unless you entered the theater already in love with Jesus and his story, the whole movie seemed like 2.5 hours of senseless violence. I mean, for all the build-up The Passion delivered, it might as well have been a snuff flick about torturing some random Middle-Eastern peasant.

For this reason, I found the movie deeply disturbing. Themes of sacrifice and redemption took backstage to prolonged, graphic, wantonly cruel violence. Each scene had all the tasteful artistic finesse of a Marilyn Manson video. As an audience member, I felt as if I had 2 choices - cry, or numb-out in shock. I think I did a little of both.

Afterwards I felt neither hopeful nor reflective; as a matter of fact, I'd never been more turned-off to Christianity in my life. I expected to respect the film - or even like it - but I’m sorry to say I can do neither.


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