A few days ago I was given a copy of a DVD titled ’’The Passion of the Jew’’. It was a collection of three episodes of my favorite cartoon series ’’South Park’’ featuring potty mouthed kids from a fictional place in Colorado called South Park. The title of the three episodes were ’’The Passion of the Jew’’, ’’Red Hot Catholic Love’’ and ’’Christian Hard Rock’’. In the true spirit of South Park the cartoon characters went on to caricature the idiosyncrasies of modern Christianity.
When they made fun of ’’The Passion of the Christ’’ and its director/producer Mel Gibson, my curiosity about this movie was awakened and I borrowed the movie from my born-again neighbour who was only too glad to educate this ’’idol-worshipping heathen’’. I have to confess that I had been living under a stone while the movie was released, but I can yet be ’’saved’’ by watching it on DVD.
The movie begins with Christ (James Caviezel) praying in the garden of olives and Satan trying to dissuade him by saying that one man cannot bear the burden of the sins of mankind. Christ then confers with his faithful and the Roman legionnaires come to arrest him. His crime being heresy against the Jewish temple. Judas has just sold him out to the Jewish inner circle headed by Caiphas. The consequent frames show the conflicts of conscience that Judas has due to his betrayal.
Christ is brought before the council and is convicted of heresy by Caiphas and his fellow council members who share an incompetent dentist. Peter is reminded of Christ’s prophecy that Peter will deny him (Christ) thrice before the cock crows twice. The Roman prefect of that province, Pontius Pilate is asked to sentence Christ by Caiphas but his wife Claudia of the Chlorox-treated robes dissuades him by using a provincial technicality.
Meanwhile Herod refuses to sentence Christ, labeling him a fool and sends him back to Pilate. Thus starts the much drawn-out torture which Mad Mel seems to derive some perverted pleasure from showing the viewers the grisly torture of Christ, with the nefarious Judeans cheering the soldiers on. What my heathen mind couldn’t understand was the significance of Satan with a child? By portraying the devil as an asexual woman (an irony in itself) is Mel trying to convey a message of misogynism too?
Pilate of the ponderous heart places a deal in front of the Jews, seeing if they will make Christ their annual prisoner to be released. Instead Caiphas and his minions choose a serial killer and rapist, vociferously appealing that Jesus be sentenced to die by crucifixion. Pilate in a masterful move washes his hands of the whole affair, by literally washing his hands with water.
The subsequent scenes of the movie show Christ’s long march to the hill with the heavy wooden cross and the anguish of Mary Magdalene and Christ’s mother, Mary. After the long drawn act of nailing Christ to the wooden cross (with Mel Gibson’s plump palm playing a part according to the director’s cut) the immortalized conversation between Christ and a couple of other common convicts is enacted. Mary Magdalene remembers her redemption at the hands of Christ with the famous test of eligibility to cast the first stone.
Personally, the most touching scenes in the movie were Mary’s memories of Christ as her son and the bond which is unique to a mother and her progeny. If there is a redemption for this movie, these scenes which show the unbearable anguish of a mother who knows that her son has been ordained to die for no crime of his, but who’s faith in the cause he is being sacrificed for, is unshakeable.
The cinematography was exceptional and the music composed to match the tone of the movie. Why don’t I like this movie as much as my neighbour would like me to?
One, it feels to me like it’s motive is not the propagation of Christ’s greatness but an indictment of the people perceived as behind his killing. Second, it is based on the work of a nun who was a known anti-Semite.
If any, if Mel wanted to perform a service to his chosen God, he would have made an exceptional movie showing Christ’s life and not how he died? The basis for Christianity is Christ’s teaching, not his death. I think that he agreed to die so that people can be relieved of their sins and start life with a clean slate using his teachings as a guideline.
Death is the irrefutable destination of any being that is born, it is how Christ lived that distinguished him. In terms of content Martin Scorcese’s ’’The last temptation of Christ’’ was a vastly superior movie, while Mel’s movie comes across as an expensive pogrom initiator.
Now, let me get off my soapbox, reflect on what I’ve written and watch that wickedly funny South Park DVD again.