Word: christ
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Director Mel Gibson takes an emphatically different approach to his subject in The Passion of the Christ, representing the teachings of Jesus through a gore-drenched recreation of the final twelve hours before his death. Here, the son of God is a wholly human figure, and Gibson constantly reminds his audience of this with an unceasing depiction of shredded flesh and spattered blood. The effect is alternately piercing and numbing...
...crucifixion site, underpinning the magnitude of the event by exhibiting the individuals’ relative irrelevance. Furthermore, every aspect of the persecution becomes a multi-sensory experience, as each lashing is accompanied by a vivid shower of crimson and unnerving sound effects. At one point, a Roman soldier flagellates Christ with a whip of broken metal tips, the shards embedded and then ripped from his torso. As this is done, numerous close-ups of the resulting cuts are accompanied with the squelch of tearing skin, amplified to a horrendous volume...
...performance by Jarreth Merz, who initially helps carry the cross with great reluctance, but by journey’s end is risking his own life in Christ’s defense. Perhaps the film’s most moving sequence is provided by an anonymous woman who gracefully offers Christ a bowl of water...
...these deviances belong to the world of historical debate, and are only minor distractions from an otherwise important artistic work. Though violence is the film’s major theme, what resonates from The Passion of the Christ is not necessarily its brutality, but rather the significance of his sacrifice. There are only glimpses of Christ’s words in the movie, and his resurrection is given minimal screen time, but these are provided in such well-timed respites that their resounding impact is ultimately The Passion’s greatest, most awe-inspiring achievement...
...surprised me how little I cared about this character’s life. I am not being callous, but there are three fatal flaws that damage the film for nonbelievers: almost no characterization or narrative, a spectacularly large amount of violence and almost all of the Jews are evil Christ-killers...