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The Passion of the Christ
I saw The Passion tonight. It was the first time I ever went to a movie by myself. I’ll probably never do it again, but for this movie, it wasn’t bad being alone, and I couldn’t wait any longer to see it. (And plus I couldn’t wait any longer to read other people’s blogs about it.) There were only about 15 people in the theatre, too; it was a Monday night show at 9:30 in a college town during spring break. I still have my whole ticket because there wasn’t anyone ripping them in half.
(Warning: spoilers follow. Not that you don’t know the story already. But if you haven’t seen it yet, you might not want to read this yet.)
Despite all the whining I’ve heard up till now, the movie wasn’t any more violent than lots of other R-rated movies. And that whole issue is irrelevant anyway because this is a true story; Jesus was violently beaten and violently killed, so a movie that faithfully depicts those events will be violent.
At times I got very angry. First of all, the people were so barbaric. And the soldiers constantly whipping Jesus as he carried the cross... how much of a moron do you have to be to not realize that if you want him to go forward, you can’t knock him down? I was also really mad while the soldiers almost scourged him to death, after they had been ordered not to kill him.
The only time I got really choked up was when Claudia brought the white towel/sheet to Mary. I’m not sure why then; maybe because they just got done showing so much of Jesus’ beating, and you could still hear it in the background, and just all the emotion between the women. Ironically, Claudia thought the situation was unjust while Mary understood that it needed to happen.
Some things made me really happy, too. It was awesome when after they nailed Jesus to the cross, they flipped it over, and the whole thing was levitating about a foot off the ground. I presume this is because of the prophecy which says that no bone in his body shall be broken; certainly flipping the cross over and dropping it face-down with Jesus on it would have broken ribs and probably legs. And I almost jumped up and cheered when the crow pecked out the eyes of the murderer who was laughing at Jesus on the cross. At the end, I thought it was really neat how the stone rolled itself away, and the camera panned past the vacant shroud, and you saw Jesus just crouched on the ground, waiting to walk out.
I thought that satan’s constant presence was interesting and well-done. I’m glad (s)he was portrayed as just plain evil and subtle, instead of being red with horns and a pitchfork. (Though it was kind of interesting how everyone in the movie was dressed in clothes from that time period, while satan wore what looked to be a modern black hoodie.) Apparently the role was played by a female, but I don’t think the face looked any more female than male, or vice-versa. And I’m glad I didn’t end up seeing the movie with Dimitry like I was supposed to, because satan’s face and eyes were very similar to his. I’m additionally glad it’s spring break and Dimitry won’t be back for a week.
My favorite character was Pilate. He was really tough and cool, and really skeptical. I didn’t like how they portrayed him as needing his wife’s permission/guidance before making any decisions, but whatever, in gay upside-down feminist American entertainment, that’s what you get.
The soldiers who were scourging Jesus were beating him so hard that they were out of breath. That is telling. Truly the only way Jesus was able to stay conscious through that was through God’s sustenance. The body signals the mind into unconsciousness in the face of that kind of pain, but Jesus had to feel the pain. And the way they yanked on his arms to dislocate his shoulders to crucify him... terrible.
One of the languages (probably Greek) was pretty similar to Spanish in a lot of words; I picked out cuando for "when" and verita- for "truth" a few times. Um... there were others but I forget now. Of course I understood Cephas for "Peter" and Yeshua for "Jesus."
One thing I was waiting for that didn’t happen was for one of the soldiers to say, "Truly this man was the son of God" after crucifying him.
All in all I think the movie was superb. It reminds me very much of this song by The Cross Movement. One of my friends had said it was overly Catholic, and that the story mostly just followed Mary around the whole time. I don’t see it that way at all. It followed Jesus, and showed a decent amount of Mary, which I’d say is appropriate.
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