Gibson's 'Passion' has little but suffering on its mind

Few things breed controversy more readily these days than a movie on a religious topic. "The Passion of the Christ," directed by Mel Gibson, reminds us of this with a vengeance. Tabloid columnists and cable-TV pundits have been raising a ruckus over it for months, starting long before the picture was even finished.

Now the movie is here, and whatever else one might say about it, Mr. Gibson has clearly tapped into the uneasy, often troubled mood of the early 21st century. As the advance buzz indicated, it's an exceedingly violent movie, reenacting the torture and crucifixion of Jesus with a ferocity unknown in traditional film treatments.

It also offers a dubious depiction of the Jewish community's role in Jesus' execution - not actively supporting anti-Semitic interpretations, which Gibson has publicly disavowed, but leaving that door open for viewers already tainted by an anti-Semitic bias. Pontius Pilate is shown as a rueful believer in realpolitik, for instance - an ancient Henry Kissinger, you might say - while the Jewish mob is portrayed as yowling for death with no hint of reason or rationality.

Measured on the more mundane scale of motion-picture craftsmanship, "The Passion" is expertly made, thanks largely to Jim Caviezel's fervent portrayal of Jesus and Caleb Deschanel's skillful camera work.

But the film contains little to learn from, unless one is unfamiliar with basic Christian history. And it presents even less to be inspired by, unless one regards Jesus' earthly suffering as momentous for its own sake, rather than a precondition for his triumph over death, which occupies only the last few seconds of the film. The highly selective screenplay includes only a few of Jesus' words, spoken in occasional flashback scenes.

Gibson has said making "The Passion" was a religious mission for him, and I'm sure that's true. The logo of his company, Icon Productions, includes a small section of a religious painting, and several close-ups of Caviezel's face unmistakably mirror this image, suggesting that the picture of the suffering of Jesus has long carried deep meanings for Gibson himself. The single-mindedness of "The Passion" bears this out.

Still, it's important to note that while Gibson is a versatile actor and director, he has shown a recurring penchant for violence in his projects, from the "Mad Max" and "Lethal Weapon" series through more ambitious pictures such as "Braveheart," the Best Picture winner that climaxes with Gibson's character being tortured at harrowing length.

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