Today I went to see Mel Gibson’s new movie, The Passion of the Christ. It was very emotionally draining for me. I had read a number of reviews of the movie; some claimed it was anti-Semetic, others claimed that it was a fantastic work of art (but the latter came from people who liked Matrix Revolutions, so I was a bit suspicious). I had also heard that it was an exceedingly graphic movie.

First off, this is simply a really good movie. After innumerable low-budget “Jesus” films, it’s nice to see one done professionally. After seeing blue-eyed, blond-haired (or even red-haired!) Jesuses, it’s nice to see a brown-haired, brown eyed one. (Although Jim Cavaziel, the actor who played Jesus, has blue eyes, they digitally changed them to brown for the film.) After seeing skinny, pink-skinned Jesuses, it was nice to see a dark(er) Jesus that looked like he had been moving lumber around for most of his life. The film is done in Aramaic and Latin, with English subtitles, but subtitles have never fazed me. In a number of places, the conversation is so easily understood from context and gestures, they didn’t even bother to put the translation down.

The last Jesus film I saw was the Visual Bible’s “Matthew.” That film was flawed from the start; they decided to use the word-for-word NIV scripture of Matthew as the movie script. While that saved having to pay a scriptwriter, the plain fact is that written accounts seldom translate well directly to screen. Mel Gibson has done a fantastic job interpreting the starkness of the gospel accounts and adapting them into a movie. He’s not afraid to make up scenes that never appear in the gospels, but nevertheless fit the character of Jesus and could have happened. His scenes with Mary the mother of Jesus are especially strong (as befits a Catholic filmmaker).

There were very few “cringing” moments, where I saw something historically inaccurate. (He gets nailed through the palms, not the wrists, for instance.) Gibson works in a number of very specifically Catholic scenes that may not be recognizable to Protestants, though. For instance, there is a scene on the Via Delarosa involving the legendary Saint Veronica. Those not knowledgeable with Catholic saints or even the Shroud of Turin are unlikely to catch the reference. There’s also an exceedingly creepy scene where the androgenous Satan carries a demon-baby in blasphemous mockery of the Madonna-and-child paintings popular in iconography.

To answer the main questions about the movie: is it really that graphic? Yes. I know of a number of ways it could have been more graphically violent (for instance, the Visual Bible’s “Matthew” shows him getting part of his beard torn out; that’s not in here), but it certainly deserves its “R” rating. Gibson put the violence there for us to see. If we avert our eyes from it, it’s our decision, the camera doesn’t do it for us. Is it unnecessarily graphic? No. Absolutely not. You have to be confronted with the awful offensiveness of the crucifixion to understand the absolute seriousness of sin. The more you understand what it cost Jesus, the more you love him.

Is it anti-Semetic? No more than the scripture. Certainly, we see the murderously schemeing High Priest and the fickle crowds of Jews – but we also see the casual brutality and sadism of the Roman troops. But this isn’t Gibson’s point – he includes Jesus’ line “Nobody takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord.” We sent Jesus to the cross. In fact, the only time we see Mel Gibson is in the crucifixion scene – it’s his hands that drive the nails.

Is it as amazing and wonderful a movie as everyone talks about? Well, yes, if you haven’t listened to the hype. If you have, of course you’re going to be let down. Nothing but the Second Coming itself could live up to the hype. If you go into the movie expecting the Rapture, you’ll be disappointed. If you go in there looking for flaws, you’ll find them. But if you go in there prayerfully, with the heart attitude of “Lord, teach me,” you’ll be deeply affected and hopefully changed for the better.

For me, the film brought home the humanity of Christ and the apparent ridiculousness of his claim to divinity to the priests and Jews. He’s standing there, a man, beaten and bloodied, and still claiming to be God. I mean, come on, that’s a no-brainer. But then, you hear how he prays for his executioners, “Father, forgive them,” and you hear what he says to the thief on the cross, and you understand the dispirited disciples that thought, “Oh, if only it could have been true! Oh, if only he had been the Messiah! That would have been good news beyond all hope.” And then you remember exactly what it is you believe, and exactly who it is that you are looking for to appear in the sky with his hosts of angels, and the longing gets so unbearably strong you just want to weep that it isn’t here already.

But in situations like this, it’s hard to tell which part is the movie’s doing, and which part is God’s doing that’s specific to you alone.