Cooped up in a plane for eleven hours recently, with a choice of sixty films and 87 documentaries to watch, I chose Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Citizen Kane. But before those, curiosity drove me to watch Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
All three films struck me as somewhat implausible. But then it is in the nature of cinema that one has to suspend one's disbelief. For facts, I could have watched the documentary on the Barrier Reef. None of the films had a strong plot, either - I had no difficulty in pressing the pause button when meals or drinks arrived at my seat.
The Passion lacks a plot because it tells only part of the gospel narrative. Despite occasional flashbacks, it concentrates on the events of Good Friday, from the Garden of Gethsemane to Jesus' deposition from the Cross and burial in a freshly-hewn tomb. For us who know the story and the reason for it, of God's Son, sent into the world to live and die and rise again for us, the film just showed a short episode.
Each gospel has its own special emphasis, and each gospel tells a slightly different story. Seeing the stories all run together on the screen raised some pointless questions - what exactly did happen to Judas? How did Caiaphas travel from trial to trial? How roughly did Pilate treat Jesus? Didn't Pilate's troops speak Greek rather than Latin, and what language did Caiaphas and Pilate converse in? Or Pilate and Jesus?
Any film of any book is sure to add details which are not in the text. What did Golgotha look like? How far did Jesus carry his cross? Gibson took some of his images from mediæval art and from mediæval devotion, though a film-maker's sense of symbolism has to be different from a painter's, and I am afraid that personally I found the film neither particularly realistic nor particularly symbolic!
Nevertheless I would recommend a thoughtful viewing of the film. Not the violent episodes, for the scourging is overdone. It is good to be reminded, though, that crucifixion was messy, painful and ugly - "laying down one's life for one's friends" can be not only courageous but painful. But by showing us all the events of the Gospel narratives in turn, the film can bring to our attention some detail which, in reading or hearing, we pass by. When seeing it on the screen, we notice it.
I experienced this with Jesus' words to "the beloved disciple" - "Behold your mother." Here on the cross a cosmic drama is being played out. Yet amid the agony, Jesus considers a detail. It is no trivial detail, or John would not have reported it. What does it tell us? If the film raises just one question like this in our mind, it will have done some good.
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