The Passion of the Christ
I knew that I just had to watch The Passion of Christ the moment I learnt that it was in Latin. In fact, Mel Gibsion had initially wanted to release it without any english subtitles! I find non-english movies made for an english speaking audience really appealing. The very fact that they are not in the native language of the viewer makes them non-mainstream, thus better (imo).
The movie is about the last 12 hours of Christ’s life. It shows Christ being captured, tried, convicted, tortured, tortured and tortured a lot more before he is finally crucified. It is one of the grimmest and most horrifying movies I’ve ever seen. It is hard to imagine such a thing ever really happened.
Think about the war scenes in “Saving Private Ryan” and imagine all that and much worse happening to a single person. And the movie shows it all in great detail. There are times when I had to close my eyes and remind myself that it was just a movie. I think this is one of the best compliments a movie can get. You could literally hear a pin drop as the movie ended and the credits rolled on the screen!
What I did not like was the lack of character development. Very little is shown about the other characters in the movie. I’m not Catholic, and have never read the Bible. This made understanding some parts even harder. But then that is partly my mistake.
One thing to remember while watching this is this is only one interpretation of all the evidence available of the crucifixion. The movie shows the Sanhedrin, a governing senate composed of the leading Jewish priests and Pharisees, to be the real conspirators of his death. Personally I find it hard to believe that the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate was as innocent as he is shown. And this is what the controversy is all about.
Definitely a must watch. Be it for religious reasons, or just watching a great movie.
February 29th, 2004 at 1:14 pm
Definitely not the kind of movie I’d want to watch on a weekend. As it is, my life is full of violence, don’t want any more from a movie
On a serious note, such kind of movies with religious themes usually put me off. All the more the movies which portray more of “sacrifice” and standing up for the good (and all that crap) make me even more disinclined to watch it ! Regardless of the movie being about Christianity or Hinduism or whatever religion …. I just don’t like mass promoting religion thru the media.
March 1st, 2004 at 1:36 am
hey ankit!
You used to work at Veritas, in my group ?
March 1st, 2004 at 7:03 am
Just a small correction. The movie is in Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic languages. These used to be spoken during that period in that part of the world.
March 2nd, 2004 at 12:42 am
Hi Rohit! Yea, I was with Veritas, Pune. So how is everyone in the VM group?
Rugby Star, thanks for pointing that out. They all sound the same to me
March 2nd, 2004 at 10:46 am
I had taken up a course on Aramic and Herbrew Languages and their history. You see Hebrew is a Semitic language and the official language of Israel. Hebrew was the language of the early Jews, but fell out of use as an everyday spoken language and was replaced by Aramaic about 2,500 years ago. Hebrew continued to be used as a liturgical language since then and was revived as a spoken language in the early 20th century. Today about 5 million people speak Modern Hebrew.
Aramaic was the linguage of much of the Middle-East from about 7th century BC until the 7th century AD, when it was largely replaced by Arabic. Classical or Imperial Proto-Hebrew was the main language of the Persian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires and spread as far as Greece and the Indus valley.It was once the main language of the Jews and appears in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is still used as a liturgical language by Christian communities in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and is still spoken by small numbers of people in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and Syria.
Latin, though a dead language, can still be heard in a few places like Vatican.