Where to start? One of the most relentless and crushing films that I have ever seen, this is the hugely controversial dramatisation by Mel Gibson of the final hours of the life of Jesus. As The Passion was completely self-financed by Gibson's production company, Icon, it's a resolutely personal quest to highlight the suffering that Jesus went through from His betrayal by Judas up to the crucifixion. Comedic asides, it is safe to say, are at a minimum.
Utterly unforgiving and insistent, the film focuses with an almost giddy zeal on the sheer horror of the tortures that Jesus went through, exposing the viewer to a 15 minute flaying sequence in which bits of flesh are visibly ripped from His body. It's a sequence as vicious as anything in the most extreme of action or horror films.
To the question of the much mooted anti-Semitism; though my knowledge of the doctrines of organised religion can mercifully be described as limited, an edge is present here that could - and probably will - be construed as such. While Gibson doesn't tar all Jews with the same brush, there is a palpable rush to caricature when it comes to the leaders, especially Jewish high priest Caiaphas (Mattia Sbragia) and the sympathetic ease in which Pilate (Hristo Shopov) is portrayed. If the film's purpose is to show the sheer enormity of Christ's suffering then it succeeds on a certain level. Entertainment doesn't ever come into it, for this is tough, brutal and vaguely depressing filmmaking with a vision which is as intolerant as it is unforgiving. And even considering the violence, that's still probably the most shocking thing about The Passion of the Christ.
