“The Passion of the Christ” is Now Showing: A Killer Film on Our Screens
Today, “The Passion of the Christ” has been released in our cinemas. Perhaps a weary Russia will take a curious glance and quickly forget Gibson’s latest thriller. But surely, some, following the example of Arab extremists, will rejoice that “the masks have finally been ripped off the Jews.” And perhaps, for some, this screening will be their last. Because a film of a new genre for cinema is hitting our screens – a killer film that has already claimed several human lives.
If anyone thinks that “The Passion” is an honest act of spiritual exploration, they are mistaken. This is a successful commercial project, the goal of which is to make money, a lot of money. For this, Mel Gibson has two surefire trump cards: an excellent school of shock cinema, which he went through in the films “Mad Max,” “Lethal Weapon,” and “Braveheart,” and a theme that will certainly attract millions of viewers to cinemas. Moreover, let’s note, new viewers.
What, in essence, happened? For many years, cinema has been oriented towards young people, making its ratings with them. “The Passion of the Christ” has attracted all ages and peoples, and this is a resource for box office revenue that one can only dream of. For believers, the hero of the film is an object of religious worship, the foundation of faith and, for many, of life itself; they will all take this very seriously. People far from the church will be attracted by the basic cultural myth, which for centuries has been a source of inspiration for artists, writers, and musicians. Both categories of people – and this is practically the entire population of the Earth – are eager to see a new, and even framed by such a scandal, embodiment of the last hours of Christ. Even those who rarely took an interest in cinema went to watch.
As a result, despite the monotony of the film, it’s a sensation, a record flow of viewers. Many of them previously disdained horror films, and saw all the signature tricks of a typical horror movie – with blood-ketchup, gouged-out eyes, scary faces of Satan, and human flesh turned into raw steak – for the first time. They are shocked, they perceive the hyped spectacle as a real historical event and as a kind of artistic feat. Although this is simply standard special effects for cinema, but in extreme concentration: an hour and a half of torture in detail, more reminiscent of a porn film for sadomasochists.
Dividing the Audience
The film divides viewers into two camps, depending on faith or disbelief. For Christians, its hero is a priori an object of worship, they do not need artistic justifications for the hero’s chosenness, which means they do not require characters and destinies from the film – they are satisfied with the iconographic image of the skillfully made-up James Caviezel. They feel Christ’s suffering as their own, suffer genuinely, and, as we know, there are already the first victims of this blasphemously naturalistic theology.
For non-believers, there is less dry residue: they, the godless, definitely need to understand why the high-flown hero has such hatred and such love from the people. Gibson’s film for them is just a revived, but nevertheless, static canvas by an inept copyist of Caravaggio or Michelangelo – there is no prehistory and no development in it. And if pictures of Christ’s past life do arise, they are given in the traditions of sugary illustrations to the Law of God: they say, when Christ was little with curly hair, he washed his hands before eating. Of the artistic images in the film, only one is impressive: the image of an unreasoning, slavish crowd, which eternally crucifies and lynches its liberators, and only after destroying them, begins to mourn. Of the heroes of the film, Pontius Pilate seems relatively alive, stunned by the bloodthirstiness of the people, the rest are faceless and cardboard. The scene where, at the request of the maddened crowd, the procurator releases the murderer Barabbas, but gives Christ to be crucified, could become a metaphor for human history, but this goes beyond Gibson’s commercial plans, he is not interested in this. He makes a hypnotic film, a film-ritual, a hybrid of mass with a thriller, and Christ’s commandments, in which the whole meaning of redemption lies, gives in a simplified “digest” version.
And this also betrays the attractional nature of the film, which entirely stands on one single trick, and when the trick is over, it’s time to rush to the finale.
A Closer Look at the Plot
Now let’s try to abstract from the canonical context and trace the plot as it is given in the film. A certain bearded man poses as a prophet and for some reason demands special attention to himself. The upstart is stoned: people do not like admonitions, and those in power do not want to share it. But his stubbornness inflames the crowd and they kill the bearded man for a long time, voluptuously. Who is this person and on what basis does he claim to be a spiritual guide – the answers must be sought in the Gospel, but not in the film. The film, which screens the most intellectually bottomless book in human history, is generally not inclined to think about anything. Gibson made a thriller – the only thing he knows how to do – and thought only gets in the way of the “action genre.”
Thus, out of ignorance of the basics or, rather, deliberately, Gibson violated an important law of art: artistic impression is not equal to life. It may even be stronger – but different in nature. Aesthetic experience is the work of the mind and soul, it has nothing to do with the shock of a naturalistic spectacle. But only shock is the basis of “The Passion of the Christ.” Here, even the nature of the Gospel itself is distorted: fundamentally stingy on picturesqueness, it does not seek to horrify us with physiological details and, moreover, does not savor Christ’s suffering. In Gibson’s mass-thriller, these details are the essence, and in his flock, reason and logic give way to blind emotions. No one in the frenzy will even notice that the amount of blood spilled on the pavement is enough for a dozen Christs, and the wounds inflicted on him in the first minutes are incompatible with life.
Thus, this film is no more than an empty vessel, which everyone fills with their own content. But in all cases, viewing only excites and legitimizes the darkest impulses. A sadomasochist will receive a powerful dose of secret pleasure. Someone in a country of triumphant crime will be inspired by the technical details of ingeniously staged tortures. An anti-Semite will have a reason to share the rush with like-minded people (in the USA, according to polls of film viewers, anti-Semitism has already noticeably increased; in Egypt, the cartoon “The Prince of Egypt,” which showed a Christian prophet as a sympathetic guy, is banned, but the film about the torture of Christ is received very favorably). A peaceful believer, if he survives, will experience a reverent feeling of touching the relics, only given in luxurious color and in chic “Dolby.” A fanatical extremist will become even more inflamed: the television chronicle of brutalized crowds too literally repeats the mise-en-scènes of “The Passion of the Christ” to believe that it was done without ideological and emotional plagiarism. Impressionable people will leave completely depressed, traumatized by the experience. And already three people have died during screenings from heart attacks.
The exploits of the killer film, I’m afraid, are only just beginning. After all, it is like an elephant in a china shop: it coarsened, reduced to the idea of a primitive vendetta the explosive substance of religious faith, which for centuries has been pitting the blinded against each other. Christ’s covenant to forgive one’s enemies sounds much less expressive in the finale than the hour-and-a-half act of torture. After such a film, the most natural impulse is to look for enemies and take terrible revenge on them. “The Passion of the Christ,” by the very selection of expressive means, provokes religious hatred, so I understand those people in Hollywood who now refuse to shake Gibson’s hand – as a professional and as a person.