Hell on Earth
Mel Gibson does penance with the slo-mo suffering of The Passion of the Christ

By Dennis Harvey


ONE HOPES SOMEDAY we get a truly worthy biography of Mel Gibson, whose life – especially the inner part – now looks more interesting than any film he's made in the past 20 years. He was born a New Yorker, moved to Australia, and raised an Irish Catholic: the perfect boilermaker recipe for warring entitlement, pugnaciousness, and guilt if ever there was one.

There's been well-chronicled drinking, fistfighting, homophobia, and misogyny (recanted to various degrees), abstinence, and born-again religiosity (though he was named after an Irish saint to begin with), not to mention seven children so far. Millions have been served and bazillions banked via possibly the most crass, soulless, pandering run of lunch-meat movies ever chosen by an actor of actual talent. (For evidence of the latter, see the features he made 20 to 25 years ago: Mrs. Soffel, The Year of Living Dangerously, Gallipoli, Tim, etc.) You can excuse Sly and Ahnold their macho-blowhard trespasses because, frankly, what else were they going to do? But Gibson could have done anything – preferably anything but Lethal Weapon 4, Bird on a Wire, What Women Want, Payback, and Maverick.

Gibson seems to enjoy his massive success not at all. Yet he doesn't appear particularly moved to humility either. He's attained the top it's lonely at, where one can only lie down on stinging nettles of depression and paranoia. By his account, making The Passion of the Christ was a cleansing experience – more, it pulled him back from confessed suicidal urges.

The clearest (secular) way to view this movie is as an act of penance. But just as his heroes recently have become humorless champions of family values against barbarian invasion – e.g., Signs, The Patriot, Vietnam apologia We Were Soldiers – so the directorial effort Passion uses sadism to express masochism. It stages the ultimate story of "faith, hope, and love" (Gibson's words) as unending slaughter. If you thought Braveheart almost lunatic in its brutality, welcome to the ninth circle of this mortal coil's hellfire.

The rare mainstream film rated R solely for violence (a mere genre film with this content would've gotten an NC-17), it's not about the higher good but rather the lower bad. Like many who prefer an angry god to a loving one, Gibson's scriptural interpretation scorches the earth with a zeal that suggests "This time it's personal." Choosing to portray only Jesus' last 12 mortal hours, he's über-mall-flicked the Greatest Story Ever Told: there's nothing left now but jolting climax after climax, the Savior's body here profaned as Los Angeles freeways in yet another Lethal Weapon.

Presumably we can dispense with outlining the story, though of course folks have and will be arguing over its "accuracy" for some time to come – as if the four Gospels themselves in their myriad versions could ever be reconciled into one definitive account. (Gibson and co-scenarist Benedict Fitzgerald have also noted inspiration from tracts by a 16th- and an 18th-century nun, both of whom claimed explanatory, not-seen-in-any-Bible visions received directly from Son and Father, respectively.)

But is this version anti-Semetic as rumored, you ask? In intent, perhaps not; in effect, hoo mama. The prophet surely did threaten Jewish elders eager to maintain even a subservient, tenuous peace with Roman authorities. Still, if the Roman soldiers who torment Jesus (James Caviezel) here are painted as rabid dogs, those Jewish high priests who hand him over seem even more contemptible. And while Mother Mary (Maia Morgenstern), Magdalene (Monica Bellucci), and select others personify agonized empathy as they follow a dwindling mob to the Crucifixion scene, Jesus' reluctant sentencer, Roman governor Pontius Pilate (Hristo Naumov Shopov), seems all that plus extra nobility.

Less likely to be noticed are the interesting choices of making not just King Herod a big smirking queen (as usual) but Satan a delicate-featured androgyne. Let's hope Gibson weighs in with his opinion on gay marriage soon. God knows after seeing this humorless splatter flick (the meaningfully initialed Caviezel wears a virtual flayed-flesh bodysuit for the last hour) we'll all need a laugh.

It took courage as well as muscle to make this film, let alone in Latin and Aramaic. (Too bad Gibson had to cave in to subtitles; his original plan to go without would have been truly daring.) You can't dismiss the traditional filmmaking skill at work here – or even the conviction behind it. The relentless Dolby thunderclaps, gore, and slo-mo suffering will no doubt traumatize many viewers into feeling some affirmation of sorts. But if redemption is the point, why is it so obscured by the same spit-foaming rage of righteousness one sees in Fred Phelps and Hell Houses?

I'll leave the last words here to Gibson himself, courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League Web site: Read it and weep.

'The Passion of the Christ' opens Wed/25 at Bay Area theaters. See Movie Clock, in Film listings, for show times.