The Passion of the Christ (Widescreen) (Version française)

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Product Overview

• Format: DVD

Amazon.ca After all the controversy and rigorous debate has subsided, Mel
Gibson's The Passion of the Christ will remain a force to be reckoned with. In
the final analysis, "Gibson's Folly" is an act of personal bravery and
commitment on the part of its director, who self-financed this $25-30 million
production to preserve his artistic goal of creating the Passion of Christ
("Passion" in this context meaning "suffering") as a quite literal, in-your-
face interpretation of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus, scripted
almost directly from the gospels (and spoken in Aramaic and Latin with a
relative minimum of subtitles) and presented as a relentless, 126-minute
ordeal of torture and crucifixion. For Christians and non-Christians alike,
this film does not "entertain," and it's not a film that one can "like" or
"dislike" in any conventional sense. (It is also emphatically not a film for
children or the weak of heart.) Rather, The Passion is a cinematic experience
that serves an almost singular purpose: to show the scourging and death of
Jesus Christ in such horrifically graphic detail (with Gibson's own hand
pounding the nails in the cross) that even non-believers may feel a twinge of
sorrow and culpability in witnessing the final moments of the Son of God,
played by Jim Caviezel in a performance that's not so much acting as a willful
act of submission, so intense that some will weep not only for Christ, but for
Caviezel's unparalleled test of endurance. Leave it to the intelligentsia to
debate the film's alleged anti-Semitic slant; if one judges what is on the
screen (so gloriously served by John Debney's score and Caleb Deschanel's
cinematography), there is fuel for debate but no obvious malice aforethought;
the Jews under Caiaphas are just as guilty as the barbaric Romans who carry
out the execution, especially after Gibson excised (from the subtitles, if not
the soundtrack) the film's most controversial line of dialogue. If one accepts
that Gibson's intentions are sincere, The Passion can be accepted for what it
is: a grueling, straightforward (some might say unimaginative) and extremely
violent depiction of the Passion, guaranteed to render devout Christians
speechless while it intensifies their faith. Non-believers are likely to take
a more dispassionate view, and some may resort to ridicule. But one thing
remains undebatable: with The Passion of the Christ, Gibson put his money
where his mouth is. You can praise or damn him all you want, but you've got to
admire his chutzpah. --Jeff Shannon --This text refers to the blu_ray edition.