Passion of Christ punches into solar plexus

Passion of Christ punches into solar plexus

Actor, director and producer Mel Gibson is preparing to punch the world's solar plexus with an avowedly violent film about the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life.

The film, "The Passion of the Christ", is expected to be a box office hit, what with intense controversy surrounding the run-up to the movie's release in 2,000 theatres in the United States on Feb 25.

The $25 million film, funded by Gibson personally, is the actor's passionate reaffirmation of his Christian faith and zeroes in on the unnervingly violent and bloody last 12 hours of Jesus' life leading to his crucifixion under the helpless yet conniving gaze of Pilate, the Roman governor of Palestine.

Gibson has called the film extremely violent, aimed at pushing the audience off the edge and added a matter of fact caveat that those who cannot stomach the violence should not see the R rated production.

Some Jewish groups have expressed concern that the movie could ignite serious anti-Semitism if it specifically blames the community for the crucifixion.

Gibson himself has chosen to play it safe in his interview comments about who is to blame for Jesus' death. "The big answer is, we all did. I'll be the first in the culpability stakes here," Gibson told Diane Sawyer on ABC News' Primetime show Tuesday night.

Gibson said he has simply tried his best to interpret the Gospels. "Critics who have a problem with me don't really have a problem with me in this film," Gibson said.

"They have a problem with the four Gospels. That's where their problem is."

To a specific question whether it was the Jews who killed Jesus, Gibson noted Jesus "was a child of Israel, among other children of Israel.

There were Jews and Romans in Israel. There were no Norwegians there. The Jewish Sanhedrin, and those who they held sway over - and the Romans - were the material agents of his demise."

Abraham Foxman, national director of the politically influential Anti-Defamation League, told Sawyer that he doesn't believe Gibson is anti-Semitic. He nevertheless has concerns about the film.

"I do not believe it's an anti-Semitic movie," Foxman said. "I believe that this movie has the potential to fuel anti-Semitism, to reinforce it."

"This is his vision, his faith; he's a true believer, and I respect that," Foxman said. "But there are times that there are unintended consequences."

Gibson's own demeanour throughout his hour-long interview was that of a man who had rediscovered his Christian faith with renewed vigour, perhaps as a way out of his own personal issues of drug and alcohol addiction some 13 years ago.

At one point he appeared to endorse the popular Christian belief that embracing Christianity is perhaps the only guarantee to heaven after death, an idea that offends most non-Christians.

The movie has been expansively described by radio talk show host Rabbi Daniel Lapin as "a harbinger of America's third great religious awakening".

"Passion will propel vast numbers of unreligious Americans to embrace Christianity," Lapin says.

The movie shows that in response to the demands from citizens Pilate orders that Jesus be flagellated as punishment for blasphemy.

After the flagellation a severely disfigured Jesus is brought back before the crowds, which apparently wants more. The Roman governor orders his soldiers to do what the crowds want.

Jesus is ordered to carry a massive wooden cross through the town whose street he walks frequently stumbling under the weight of the cross. He is eventually nailed to the cross as crowds look on with a mixture of approval, bewilderment and revulsion.

The movie uses the Armaic language spoken by Jesus and his disciples, and Latin, spoken by the Romans. It is said to carefully avoid fitting its characters with sartorial stereotypes that might establish the attackers as belonging to a particular community.

Gibson has even taken care to see that words such as "Jews" or Jewish" scarcely figure in the English subtitles of the film.

"I wanted it to be shocking," Gibson said about the excessive violence in the film.

"And I also wanted it to be extreme. I wanted it to push the viewer over the edge ... so that they see the enormity - the enormity of that sacrifice - to see that someone could endure that and still come back with love and forgiveness, even through extreme pain and suffering and ridicule.