Mel Gibson’s ‘Passion’ is powerful, disturbing work of art

Gottingen, Germany – There’s something mystical about watching Mel Gibson’s surprise block-buster film The Passion of the Christ in this small German university town of Gottingen, which has produced over 40 Nobel Prize winners in the 20th century, a center of culture and once home to an ancient Jewish community, which perished in the Nazi Holocaust.

It was a unique cultural experience, with the film translated into the German language as Die Passion Christi. The film is unique for filmmaker Mel Gibson dared experiment by using historically accurate Aramaic and Latin languages to recreate the story of the final 12 hours of Jesus Christ. The languages used were almost immaterial for, except for some flashbacks and a few brief conversations, most of this movie was devoted to Jesus – played very convincingly by former Count of Monte Cristo star James Caviezel – being beaten, tortured and crucified in bloody and excruciatingly graphic scenes.

Before its nationwide showing on March 18 in Germany, this country’s Roman Catholic and Protestant churches joined the German Jewish community in a rare joint declaration to warn that Mel Gibson’s new film could fan anti-Semitism in Europe. The German Central Council of Jews, the German Bishops Conference and the Protestant Church criticized this film for its "overly negative portrayal" of Jews. They added: "There is a danger the film will revive anti-Semitic prejudices."

Unlike Japan, which up to this day had not yet officially apologized for war crimes in much of Asia and has been accused of revising history text books, the postwar democratic society of Germany has gone out of its way to emphasize the past mistake of persecuting the Jewish minority with government-funded memorials like Berlin’s Holocaust Museum and others. Here in Gottingen, which used to have a thriving Jewish community with world-class scientists, mathematicians and cultural achievers, a memorial was constructed in 1973 on the site of the former Jewish synagogue at Untere-Masch-Strabe, which was burned down by the Nazis in 1938, in memory of the town’s Holocaust victims.

Is this film anti-Semitic? No, this Mel Gibson film is not anti-Semitic, but the depiction of the Jewish leaders as nasty villains maneuvering for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ may send the wrong signals to some unsophisticated viewers in Europe, America and other regions with their tragic history of persecuting their entrepreneurial Jewish minorities. Actually, all the film’s characters who are not Romans – whether sinners or saints – are Jewish, including Jesus himself. It seemed that all the bad Jewish characters here were portrayed in a stereotypically evil way reminiscent of William Shakespeare’s Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. However, the good Jewish characters of this film – such as the beautiful Monica Belluci as Mary Magdalene and Maia Morgenstern as the Virgin Mary – were depicted like ordinary humans.

Whatever controversies the film might provoke, Mel Gibson’s Passion is truly a cultural feast not to be missed. It is a moving, emotionally disturbing and, at the same time, inspired movie created by a devoutly religious artist with unwavering personal commitment and passion reflecting his traditionalist Catholic faith. That part of the film where Gibson intercut scenes of Jesus being nailed to the cross with scenes from the Last Supper with his disciples was extremely well crafted.

Since this whole film is drenched with so much blood, gore and non-stop violence, this writer disagrees with the MTRCB rating of Parental Guidance-13 for our Philippine audience when it opens later this month. We believe that children should be spared from watching the disturbing scenes of so much unrelenting physical violence and blood, no matter how noble the religious or artistic reasons of their parents. We strongly advise parents and educators not to encourage children to watch this film.

For months, art critics, cultural reviewers and scholars in the West have endlessly argued about what Mel Gibson should have done with the Jesus Christ story and what his work of art should have said. But all of them miss the point of art, of the craft of storytelling, or of the expression of one’s personal religious conviction: Mel Gibson is and should be answerable only to his own personal artistic vision and his conscience, period.

This writer believes that critics should be fair in evaluating the film on the basis of the creator’s intentions and purpose, not based on what we think should have been done. Was Gibson successful in articulating his unique vision through art? Was he able to accomplish his goal of letting the whole world be reminded of the extraordinary high price Christ had paid for our sins and for our salvation? It is an exaggeration to describe this film as an "artistic masterpiece," but with this film, which he himself funded and which a lot of Hollywood producers before didn’t believe was commercially viable, Gibson succeeded in giving us a visceral experience of what Jesus underwent and the ultimate sacrifice he endured, which most of us so-called Christians often take for granted. This film should be a rude reawakening for all complacent or backsliding Christians, who live with so much immorality and compromises.

This bold filmmaker succeeded in expressing his daring artistic vision and in consecrating his art for his total devotion to God in this cynical and overly materialistic modern age. However, no matter how successful in the box office or in his bringing across his artistic vision and religiosity, this writer came out of the movie house in Gottingen not spiritually inspired, but also disturbed by the excessive amounts of physical violence of the whole film. Was it really necessary – for artistic style or religious passion – to let the audience watch that much agonizing gore and blood?

We took tours to numerous ancient churches, museums and even monasteries, which have been wellsprings of Western art and culture for many centuries. We remember the great Italian artist Michelangelo recounting his own visits to several famous art galleries all over Europe and how he was deeply impressed by numerous paintings, which graphically depicted Jesus Christ nailed, suffering and hanging on the cross. These works of art were similar to the Passion film of Mel Gibson.

Michelangelo said: "Why are art galleries filled with so many pictures of Christ upon the cross – Christ dying? Why do artists concentrate upon that passing episode, as if that were the last word and the final scene? Christ’s dying on the cross lasted for only a few hours. But to the end of unending eternity, Christ is alive! Christ rules and reigns and triumphs!"

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