I just saw
The Passion of the Christ last night. What I saw shocked dismayed, and in parts, horrified me. It was also surprisingly well done. But what was most disturbing was that the theater was packed.
A friend of mine organized it so that he, I, and 4 other Jewish teenagers would go together and see the movie, and at school on Monday we are supposed to explain if it is anti-Semetic. I was expecting it to be more or less like the Gospels, and not be too offended by the whole thing. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE! What I say below this is spoilers, do not read down if you want to see the movie.
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When we got to the theater, there was a church group at the front door. (The lady said, "You're seeing the Gibson film? Don't tell us how it ends.") When we got in the theater, it went completely dark, and it was so packed that we were sitting down at the bottom of the 75 foot screen theater. Luckily, we were at the bottom, so we could compare notes during the film without bothering the Gentiles. After the previews for coming attractions, while the opening credits for this movie were starting I whispered, "They should've put 'Based on a true story' up there." My friends giggled.
The movie starts in Bethesda Gardens. The only thing of note, to my mind, was Satan. Satan is a tall, asexual freak who taunts Jesus, and in that scene, you see a snake come out of her nose while she says, "Who is your father?" in a contemptuous tone. Judas' betrayal of Jesus was overly dramatic, and not very well done. I think that the Temple is a bit too overdone, as are the priests' garments. They look right out of Star Wars. Anyway, Judas betrays him, Mary and Mary Magdalene learn of it, and this is the point where all six of us discovered something.
Aramaic is Hebrew for dummies. We could actually understand much more than we thought. And because 4 of us take Latin, myself included, we were doing a running translation of Pontius Pilate and the centurions later on. Anyway, the trial in the Sanhederin. Wow. This might be the most unnecessarily anti-Semetic moment in the movie. It's like they were trying to goad us. The Jurors come off like idiots, the audience starts heckling him, one of the jurors starts screaming, "Where are the other members of the council? This is a travesty!" while being dragged off. What the movie does not tell you is that there is no textual evidence for that scene. Period. Gibson made it up. Oh, and the disciple Peter scrambles off like a scared rat, and renounces Jesus 3 times. And Satan comes to Judas in a dream and tortures his conscience with this horrifying vision of a group of little kids biting and hitting and yelling at him.
At this time, I began nervously checking my watch, and noticed that the rest of us were, too. They brought him before the loving, compassionate, sophisticated governor of Judea, the great Pontius Pilate. Oh, come on. This is completely disingenuous. Pilate, the compassionate humanitarian? "Quibus estne veritas? Quibus estne veritas, Claudia?" His wife responds that if you keep your ears closed to truth, you will never hear it. His wife, a Roman noble, has fallen for Jesus' message. WTF is up with that? Oh, and he has a long conversation with Jesus: Pilate in Latin, Jesus in Aramaic, no translator, and they understand each other. "I find no cause in him! He is one of Herod's subjects, is he not? Let him test him!" And so, they bring Jesus to Herod Antipas, the drag queen puppet king of the Jews, who thinks Jesus is funny and orders him freed. Jesus is brought back to Pontius Pilate, who puts him out alongside Barrabas, who has been changed into a John Muhammad-esque serial killer, and says, "Which of them should be freed?" "FREE BARRABAS! FREE BARRABAS!" Barrabas, who looks vaguely like John Belushi on cocaine, sticks his tongue in Pilate's face and walks triumphantly into the crowd, which begins screaming, "Crucify Jesus!" And you can clearly hear, in Latin, no less, Caiaphas say, "His blood be on us and our children." No subtitle, but it's there.
During the beating and scourging of Jesus comes some of the film's most horrific sequences, including one that I haven't heard a single mention of in our watchdog press. Satan watches Jesus get scourged. Yes. Okay. But Satan isn't alone, she's nursing a baby. The most horrifying moment of the movie is when she turns the baby around. HOLY SHIT! That thing scared the hell out of me, and even some of the Christians two rows down started wincing. There was absolutely no need to put that thing in, and I still don't know what it symbolized. Anyway, the centurions don't know how to speak Latin at all, and my friends and I were chuckling when they were counting to forty. (Onscreen)"duo de viginti, un de viginti...viginti!" (Me to the person next to me) "Isn't it supposed to be pronounced, wiginti?" (My friend back to me) "Yeah, the actors are idiots." The gore in that scene is horrific. The baby is the worst part, though, I'm not kidding, that thing gave me nightmares.
They decide to crucify him, and I'll skim over the walk to Golgatha, with a few things pointed out. First, the first thing you think when you see Mary Magdalene is not supposed to be, "Damn! She's fine!" Gibson has her slowly walking over to Jesus, who by the way, seems to be staring at her the same way. Next, that scene has to be exaggerated. No way around it. If you see it, you'll agree. I'll skip to Golgatha. The events on that hill have always been summed up best by Dylan's song, "All Along the Watchtower," where Jesus and the good thief go to heaven, and the bad thief doesn't. Except Gibson has the bad thief lose an eye thanks to a friendly crow. At this scene, I was reciting the dialogue from memory. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" "My Lord, why have you forsaken me?" "Mother, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother!"
The centurion stabs him with his lance and converts on the spot. But he does it in a Gibsonian fashion. Showered in the blood of Christ, he kneels down and weeps. There is a gargantuan earthquake after he dies, and he's buried in a cave. But he stands up, with two holes in his hand, and walks by. You can see Jesus' expression, he looks pissed! This is where you normally have a sequel start.
We decided next time we got together we would rent "The Last Temptation" and "Jesus Christ, Superstar" and have a Jesus film festival. But none of us wanted to see another Gibson movie again.