The Passion has been called ‘the most controversial film of the Century’ and has drawn the crowds and raised plenty of questions. Mel Gibson may well have invested $25 million of his own money, but he will be making plenty more.
This is a film about the execution of one man – a man and an execution which continue to shape history and I was not going to miss it. Before leaving the car I grabbed a few tissues, just in case.
Trailers were over and the film started in the garden of Gethsemane with breathtaking photography setting the scene. Soon there was noise behind me. Someone had come in feeling their way in the dark. But did they have to sit behind me, I said to myself, remembering younger days when men sat behind you in the cinema and tried to pinch your bottom. I had never been to the cinema alone before but all my friends and family had already seen The Passion on days when I couldn’t make it.
The film is harrowing. I soon began to feel emotionally exhausted. I had bought a bar of chocolate on my way in, for company and sustenance. In the interval I perceived another two human beings in the front rows. There were six of us in all. I turned round to see who it was that in a vast empty cinema had chosen to sit behind me. I put on my dragon ‘I mean business’ look..and lo and behold it was letter-writer extraordinary Maureen German. She had already seen the film she told me and Lino and herself had discussed it for hours...but she wanted to see it again. So she, like me, had come alone.
Maureen gave me an almost running and informed commentary. I did not mind it in the least since I did not have to listen to the dialogue of the film. The story of Christ’s death and crucifixion is second nature to us so there was no story line to follow either.
This is the first film in which Jesus is flogged to ribbons, kicked and beaten, reviled and humiliated before being hammered into place on Golgotha and left to die.
The horror and terror of crucifixion were not just reserved for blasphemers and religious zealots. Thousands of the followers of the gladiator Spartacus went the same way. I began to understand the full meaning of the word ‘excruciating’ after those scenes of horror.
The Jews certainly do not fare well in The Passion. They would rather see Pontius Pilate release Barabbas the murderer than Jesus. Even Pontius Pilate tries not to look surprised at this. His wife Claudia, a heathen, watches in anguish. Jesus is a holy man she had told him. Spare him.
But the Roman butchers and their rabbinical Jewish allies would not have it. Pilate was afraid of losing his job so he washes his hands and leaves the decision to the crowd, largely made up of men.
To the Jews, Jesus was a heretic. But let us not forget how many non-Christians have died at the hands of Christians. Let us not forget the Crusade sand the Inquisition. The Jews were no worse.
Even in the Garden of Gethsamane Jesus, the miracle-maker, performs another miracle on one of his enemies who came to take him away. In Jesus Christ Superstar, Herod sings: “Prove to me that you’re no fool, walk across my swimming pool.” And in the film, Herod, grotesque Herod, with Jesus before him, wants him to perform a trick, a miracle.
This film is religion as theatre. But here, we are brought up on religion as theatre. In fact we don’t want it any other way. We love the Baroque and miss it when it is not there. There’s plenty of religion but so little spirituality.
Men certainly do not fare too well in this film, barring St John and Simon of Cyrene... and the Good Thief.
It is the women who provide the touching scenes. Our Lady who knew all along the end of the story moves us continually. The scene when she and Mary Magdalen wipe up the blood of Jesus is supremely touching. Then there is Veronica, moved by pity, who courageously breaks away from the crowd and the Roman guard, and with a simple kind gesture gives Jesus her veil with which to wipe his face. It is this veil which is said to be the Turin Shroud which has provided two thousand years of controversy and devotion. (I remember my father writing to Leonard Cheshire of Cheshire Homes fame and whose book Where is God in This? is certainly worth reading. My father, a devotee of the Holy Shroud wanted to have Cheshire’s booklet on it translated into Maltese.)
But of course, in all this horror and bloodshed and sadism, we know that the death of Jesus has been foretold. It has been prophesied and so it must be fulfilled. It was inevitable and inescapable...Judas or no Judas, Pharisees or not, Pontius Pilate, Herod or not. The New Testament is interspersed with verses...’Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled..’.etc. etc. The story had to end in this way for the instructions had come from above. Even if Judas had not been bought and the Jews hadn’t been so insistent. Jesus was born to die as had been predicted.
It has been reported that the Pope saw the film and ‘was moved’. ‘It is as it was’ he said. However, the Vatican soon retreated that comment. First of all because His Holiness had just had a meeting with important members of the Jewish community in January and no doubt the Vatican feared that the success of this meeting would be tarnished by such a comment, seeing how the Jews are portrayed in the film. Secondly it is probable that such an endorsement from the Pope would be used in advertising. So the Pope’s remark was denied. But we are, by now used to the Vatican being also a place of scandal and intrigue not only holiness.
The film is about love’s continuing war with evil. Satan is visible in the film and played by Adriano Celentano’s daughter. Man’s inhumanity to man has not stopped. All you have to do is look at the daily news.
On my way out the mother and daughter asked me if I had enjoyed it. I know what they meant. ‘Enjoy’ is hardly the word to employ about such a devastatingly violent film which also brings home to you the meaning of ‘herd instinct’. Not one person shouted out for the Roman soldiers to stop their obscenities. Not one.
The search goes on. Some people have moments of doubt. I have moments of faith to which I cling. I wish they were more than just moments. I went to the film and continue to read certain books in the hope that the moments will become minutes, hours, days, weeks and so on.