Passion overload

WHEN I was offered the opportunity to attend Holy Name’s premiere screening of The Passion of The Christ in MovieTowne on Tuesday night, I had my reservations. “Why me?” I asked my Editor, “I’m not even Catholic!” Not that not being Catholic is the problem — the problem is that I have a soft heart and was very reluctant to go and put myself through two and a half hours of what has been called the most violent movie ever made. Heck, I find watching an ad for animal cruelty unbearable. How would I handle watching a man being tortured to death? But either way, off I went to MovieTowne, notebook in hand, and I sat, and I watched it.

Well, actually, I have to confess… I did not watch all of it. I couldn’t. I really tried to stick it out to see the happy ending where Jesus rises again, but I simply could not watch anymore. After an hour and a half of subjecting myself to what no doubt is the most gruesome, bloody, cruel, painful and horrific thing I have ever seen in my entire life, there came a point where my soft heart simply could not take it anymore, and I picked up my bag, silently excused myself from the cinema, made a beeline for the first stall of the ladies’ room, closed the door, crouched down against the wall, and broke down into tears.

Told you I was soft hearted! I have seen a variety of crucifixion movies, but I have never seen one like this before. Previous ones made about the life and death of Jesus have always been somewhat tame. They portray Jesus as a very somber, self righteous sort of fellow who often seems removed from other people.  But Gibson portrays Jesus as a very calm, soft and pretty much regular human being, who does simple things; like builds a table, jokes with his mother, and talks to his friends. And it is Jesus’ very human qualities that made the movie so difficult to watch, because it is unimaginable the things that humans do to other humans.

Without a doubt, no other crucifixion movie has been this graphic and in detail. Movies of the past do show the whippings, the beatings, the blood, the agony — but not nearly to the extent that Mel Gibson has gone to make his audience feel every lash, to feel every stumble and fall, to feel the gravel and dirt stick into his open wounds as he lay exhausted on the ground. Other movies have sometimes shown Jesus as staying beautiful, strong, even spirited during the ordeal of the events leading to the crucifixion, sparing the viewers from internalising the scenes. But Gibson, as a film-maker and actor, left nothing to the imagination.

When they beat Jesus, you actually see one of his eyes swell shut and turn purple.  When he opens his mouth to breathe, you see the blood drying on his gums, and you hear it gurgling in his throat as he gasps for breath. In the famed whipping scene, when they lashed him, you felt and heard the skin split open. When they chose a metal tool to whip him, you actually hear it connect with his skin, stick for a second, and you hear his flesh rip right out as they yank it back. When they put the crown of thorns on his head, Gibson showed the blood coat his eyeballs. That’s how graphic it was. And sitting there in the darkness, with surround sound pumping in your ears, makes you feel as though you are right there, watching it as it happens, so there is no chance of emotionally removing yourself from the severity of it, there is no changing the channel, and even if you close your eyes (as I did on occasion), the sound is there to haunt you. Which is why I left.

It was all very difficult to watch, which, I suppose, was Gibson’s intention. I left during the crucifixion scene because it was simply not something I wanted to see, hear, or imagine. In fact, as I made my exodus from MovieTowne, I looked around and wondered why in hell anyone would want to watch this movie. Morbid curiosity? Is it some kind of masochistic thing that the pious do — make themselves relive the ordeal? I don’t know. I suppose Catholics want to be reminded of what it was really like and to be inspired by how much suffering a person can put up with. That was another thing that kept crossing my mind as I watched the movie - that human beings are really sick creatures. The things that we do to one another are really mind boggling. The sad thing is, not much has changed over the last two thousand years in terms of human nature. Why are we as a species still so damn violent?

Not too long ago there was a case about a woman in Nigeria who had been sentenced to be buried up to her neck and stoned to death for getting pregnant out of wedlock. Can you imagine what it is like to have a crowd stoning your head and your face until you die? I’d rather not. Or how about not too long ago in Guyana they caught a robber in the market, beat him and lynched him in front of the joyous crowd? Or, even more recently, what about that lovely picture they had one day on the front page of one of our newspapers, of a crowd in Haiti dragging a dead man through the streets while people viciously chopped the body? I really don’t know about humans sometimes. The things we do to one another. In one of my favourite films, Bowling for Columbine, there is a very chilling scene accentuated by the song “What a Wonderful World” playing in the background.

The scene shows all the inhumane things we do to each other, of the millions upon millions of people who have died gruesome deaths because of their governments or their religions, how those in power finance wars and terrorism, and how much suffering we cause each other. The scene gave a timeline of international events, and ended with video footage of the second plane slamming into the World Trade Centre. What a wonderful world indeed. The Passion of The Christ is quite possibly the most disturbing film I have ever seen. If you go to see it, prepare yourself for an emotional overload. Like I said earlier, I am an outsider to Christianity, but Catholic or not, believer or not, religious or not, it was impossible to walk out of that cinema without feeling the awe at the strength of the human spirit, and the horror of our own violent and cruel universal human nature.