I saw The Passion of the Christ today. Hmmm. This might sound strange, but Leah and I found it to be a bit silly, cheesy even. It was earnest silly. Everything was just played as so damn significant, with building music, or drums, or slow motion movement, or all three at once. It seemed like no-one could look in Jesus’ eyes without being struck by the wonder and significance of his very soul. Too many shots of people looking ‘deep’ to count. Despite being told I “will need tissues”, I didn’t. And I’m not going to advise you take any because I don’t think you’ll need any either. The characters don’t behave normally with one another. There’s this distance imposed by the reverence people feel for Jesus. And conversations were restricted to lines from the Bible, and so clanged a bit when heard in a real setting. It was an odd vibe. It was like iconic imagery overload, so it seemed OTT rather than real. And OTT is not moving or profound. It was kinda funny or strange or clichéd, and didn't really work. Here are some of the things that I remember. [Just so you know, if I refer to god at all, I only mean him to be understood as a character in the movie]

When Jesus was freakin out in Gethsemane, and he’s like, having a crisis of faith and asking god to maybe like, let him not have to die for the sake of all humanity. Anyway, the devil’s next to him, and Jesus is freakin, and the clouds move over the moon and somehow that means that the devil is winning. Because now it’s dark. And then he’s like “Father…” blah blah and stuff and he’s still talking to god and the clouds pass, so now he’s praying in light, and god’s there and the devil can’t win, so there. But, I was like, “What are we saying here? That god’s the moon?” It was strange. I thought god was like, the whole sky, and everything and stuff. Even shadows.

There were some good scenes. Like when Judas is hiding under the bridge, and then a chained and beaten Jesus gets pushed over the edge and is hanging in pain before Judas’ eyes, and Judas can see what harm and pain he has put his friend in the way of, and he looks in Jesus’ eyes, etc. That was quite affecting. But then some weird ghost screamed past, and the moment was gone. Also, the scene when Jesus is getting scourged is worthy too. People seem to have had issues with this, but I don’t. I have no problem with a ‘sickening’, ‘gory’, ‘gruesome’ or ‘pornographic’ dramatisation of scourging and crucifixion. These acts are sickening and gory etc. Der. Torture, pain, excessively violent punishment, done by the ‘right’ people to show the ‘wrong’ people how bad they are. So stupid. And it needs to be shown. Killing people is wrong. But even that scene is still cheesy, and full of cliché. Like, for instance, the Roman scourge guys are all amoral drunken louts making jokes and laughing laughing laughing as they slash and tear Jesus’ skin apart. As if. That’s such a movie idea/cliché. There probably was never a punisher who ever behaved like that. I reckon they’d all be self-disgusted and on anti-depressants because of their work-related stress. No joy in their tasks. Also, I think it needs to be noted that blood does dry and crust up at some point. Or maybe Jesus is so divine that his is constantly oozy. I'm no theological scholar.

When Mary runs to Jesus after he’s fallen over [again and again and again] while carrying his god-damned cross, you expect this meaningful moment between mother and son as they look into each other’s eyes, perhaps for the last time. But then Jesus says something totally random like “Mother. I will make everything new” or something, and you’re like, “What are you talking about, dude? And why is the music rising?”

The location was great. Really nice. Made a cool backdrop to the crucifixion. But when they showed the devil in hell, it looked like a scene from Buffy. And when they visited King Herod, it looked like we had moved onto the set of Xena. Ooh, and there was this bit where the devil is carrying a creepy child, with like, an old midget face. Anyway, the aesthetic of that reminded me of City of Lost Children, by that french guy.

The funniest moment of the film was when the chick gives Jesus a towel. I was kinda softly giggling as he pressed it to his face, and then when he gave it back to the chick I was like, “Lady, don’t crumple it. You might smudge it. Don’t you know how much you could get for that thing on eBay?” Jeez. Anyway, a few moments later there she is, back in the crowd, still staring at Jesus, too distracted by his presence to notice that she has a white cloth hanging from her hand with Jesus’ face printed on it. Money shot. Hahhahahaah! Anyway, that was the only time during the movie that I almost cracked up. I would have laughed more at the preposterous solemnity of the whole thing, but there was this woman in the cinema with a lace kerchief veil on her head. I think maybe people were treating the movie as a religious experience or something. Weird. Actually, the venue was being precious about it too. There were no previews before the movie, except for one ‘public service announcement’ featuring that celibate rugby player and Paulini from Aus Idol and some other sports guy, and they were talking about how the story of Jesus “changed my life” and about how “this is a true story. If you want to find out more, go to thepassion.org.au”. Which was all a bit, um, weird. And kinda creepy.

Anyway, at the end of the movie, there’s Jesus, all nice and clean again, resurrected in his tomb. And the light’s pouring in, and he looks happy, and I’m glad about that because he’s a good sort and the poor chap’s been through a bit. Still has holes in his hands to prove it and all. Anyway, then he stands up and walks out of his tomb into the light of the world. End movie. That’s nice and all, but do you wanna know what I was thinking? I was thinking “Whoah! I just saw Jesus’ butt”. And then I was thinking, “Hey, this is a bit like Terminator”. You know, a naked guy coming from ‘another place’ and striding out naked on a naked mission to save the world? I don’t know what the music was actually like, but I’ve had the Terminator theme in my head since.

So that’s The Passion for me; preposterously epic. Go and rent Jesus of Montreal if you want to watch a Passion movie. And ooh, Leah and I were interviewed by a lady from The Age about our impressions of the film. If she can find a way to work the words “silly”, “cheesy” or "meh" into her piece, maybe our opinions will be published in the paper tomorrow?