I hope noboby thinks I regard myself arbiter
elegantiarum.
If there is any offence taken by anyone (other than Mel Gibson), and certainly none was intended, it is entirely my cross to bear, not yours, wwh.
It's only a movie.
I am not the first reviewer to have abhorred the unremitting violence and the absence of spirituality.
One reviewer said "This is the most violent movie I have ever seen".
I can't agree with him only because I didn't see it to the end.
I walked out halfway up the Via Dolorosa, my sensibilities soaked in blood.
BTW there was one other detail which seems to have been lost by reviewers amidst the unpitying orgy of brutality and blood.
The devil character glides through the crowd at intervals viewing the Christ figure's torment on the Via Dolorosa with a hint of unmistakable pleasure.
Does that seem likely?
The Christ figure was proceeding to his death on the cross to save humanity from the clutches of the devil himself.
This was surely the moment of the devil's greatest agony, not a moment for sadistic glee.
Mel Gibson's devil blew it in more ways than one. He lost the whole ball game with a twisted smirk on his face.
That twisted smirk might well have been intended for Mel himself, the devil getting the last laugh in this movie.
In my humble opinion, "The Passion of the Christ" has set Christianity back at least 500 years.
This movie speaks to a Christianity which cannot speak to us in our times.
