The Passion of the Christ

[Sullyute]

I watched Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ for the first time over the weekend. I had heard really good things about it (I even had a Muslim co-worker say she enjoyed it). I knew that it was graphic but I was unprepared for how disturbing it actually was. The whipping with the cat-o-nine tails by the Roman soldiers was the most graphic and visually disgusting part of the movie for me. I had to look away several times as there was simply too much blood and gore.

Although I did have an increase in compassion for Mary, the mother of Jesus from the movie, it did not have the same effect on me in regards to Jesus himself. Maybe I have been too indoctrinated to seeing Jesus sans blood, but what was portrayed was too over the top for me. By the time he was on the cross, his flesh was visually torn open in hundreds of places and he was literally soaked in blood from head to foot.

Lastly, I had a hard time with the eyes. I really feel like the eyes are a window to the soul, and that a lot of emotion can be shown by them. However, because one of Jesus’ eyes was swollen shut the whole movie and the other eye was colored yellow, that it just threw things off for me.

Maybe this is really what it was like and it was truly this gruesome and he really suffered to that extent. I don’t watch horror movies so this was the most graphic movie I have seen and that may have caused my squeamishness, but I simply did not come away inspired from the movie. Has anybody else seen the movie and what was your experience or reaction?


P.S. I did not understand the part when Satan was holding some demon baby, what was that suppose to signify?

[PaloAltoCougar]

I haven't seen the movie, mainly because friends who did described the torture scenes pretty much the way you did. That didn't strike me as an enjoyable, interesting or uplifting way to spend an evening.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I got about halfway through it and never finished it. I didn't like the style of the movie. The primary objective was clearly to shock the audience with the graphic violence ("Hey, look at what Jesus suffered for us..."), but there was little else in terms of character development, dialog, plot, etc. And the Satan character made me laugh. It seems like it would be tough to be over the top when Satan is involved, but Mel somehow pulled it off.