The Passion of the Christ [2004]

Customers buy this item with The Last Temptation of Christ DVD ~ Willem Dafoe

Total RRP: £35.98 Price For Both: £13.94

Amazon.co.uk Review
After all the controversy has subsided, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ will remain a force to be reckoned with. In the final analysis, "Gibson's Folly" is an act of personal bravery and commitment on the part of its director, who self-financed this $25-30 million production to preserve his artistic goal of creating The Passion of Christ ("Passion" in its original context meaning "suffering") as a quite literal, in-your-face interpretation of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus, scripted almost directly from the Gospels (and spoken in Aramaic and Latin with a relative minimum of subtitles) and presented as a relentless, 126-minute ordeal of torture and crucifixion. For Christians and non-Christians alike, this film does not "entertain" and it's not a film that one can "like" or "dislike" in any conventional sense. (It is also emphatically not a film for children or the weak of heart.) Rather, The Passion is a cinematic experience that serves an almost singular purpose: to show the scourging and death of Jesus Christ in such horrifically graphic detail (with Gibson's own hand pounding the nails in the cross) that even non-believers may feel a twinge of sorrow and culpability in witnessing the final moments of the Son of God, played by Jim Caviezel in a performance that's not so much acting as a wilful act of submission, so intense that some will weep not only for Christ, but for Caviezel's unparalleled test of endurance.

If one judges what is on the screen (so gloriously served by John Debney's score and Caleb Deschanel's cinematography), there is fuel for debate about the film's alleged anti-Semitic slant but no obvious malice aforethought; the Jews under Caiphas are just as guilty as the barbaric Romans who carry out the execution, especially after Gibson excised (from the subtitles, if not the soundtrack) the film's most controversial line of dialogue. If one accepts that Gibson's intentions are sincere, The Passion can be accepted for what it is: a gruelling, straightforward (some might say unimaginative) and extremely violent depiction of The Passion, guaranteed to render devout Christians speechless while it intensifies their faith. Non-believers are likely to take a more dispassionate view, and some may resort to ridicule. But one thing remains undebatable: with The Passion of the Christ, Gibson puts his money where his mouth is. You can praise or damn him all you want, but you've got to admire his chutzpah. --Jeff Shannon

Synopsis
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST depicts the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth (Jim Caviezel), beginning with his betrayal by Judas Iscariot (Luca Lionello) and ending with his crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. Directed by Mel Gibson (BRAVEHEART)--who funded the film himself and co-wrote the screenplay--PASSION uses flashbacks to substantiate a handful of pertinent moments in Jesus' life and teachings, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper, as well as his relationships with his mother and his disciples. Still, the drama focuses on the seemingly endless torture inflicted upon Jesus by Roman soldiers at the urging of the Jewish crowd that considers him a blasphemer, despite the attempts of a sympathetic Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov) to spare him from death. The faint of heart should be prepared for the brutal, barbaric beatings that Christ endures. Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci, and Hristo Jivkov are touching as Mary, Magdalene, and John respectively, who are devastated by Jesus' fate yet aware that they can do nothing to change it. Performed in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles, Gibson's labour of love is sure to prompt discussion and debate as to historical and Biblical fact.