Anybody else wrestle with even going to see the Passion??
Yes Roger, I'm in your boat. At first I had a big interest in it. I'll admit that I really have an interest in religion and any art that relates to it. I believe that faith is a hard thing to come by and that it's really a lifetime search. I enjoy seeing how any artist approaches religion or spirituality. It doesn't matter if it's a painting, a book, a film, or a piece of music and it really doesn't matter to me what God or entity inspired them.
I didn't really expect Mel's film to be great but I thought he had some interesting ideas. The thing is, it appears all of those ideas have been overshadowed by gory special effects and makeup. I'm just not sure if you want to show that Jesus suffered and the meaning of that suffering...that you are best served by just giving a graphic depiction of brutal torture for almost 2 hours.
My mind tends to wander if a film does not draw me in with it's story and characters. It seems to be a common accusation that this film has no story and no development of the characters. From what I can discern from what I've read there's no arc. I suppose a partial explanation for this could be that this story and these characters are already so well known to us why bother with any exposition. Just get right to the point...and the point is to bring you closer to the suffering.
From that point of veiw I suppose you could argue that film is a perfect medium to address this aspect of things. Other art forms could not really put you that close to it in such a heavy handed fashion. I think that my mind would begin to wander a bit though, along the lines of:
Wow, these effects are amazing it really looks like they are tearing Jim to shreds.
How did they do that?
Also when confronted with such over the top brutality in a film I often begin to think comic thoughts. So, what I'm saying is I think I would get pulled out of the movie by the violence and I think that's a flaw in Gibson's approach.
My interest in the film has waned considerably and like you I'm thinking I'll wait for video now. I really enjoyed Braveheart and I think that was a film that was right up Mel's alley. His approach to the Biblical though...sort of as if it were a western as he recently described another story...seems more comical than inspired.
