Spike is Best

Another overrated Catholic film is The Passion of the Christ.

Remember back in 2003/2004 how much The Return of the King and The Passion were pumped up? I'm honestly not making it up after the fact, but when I first saw The Passion of the Christ in the theater, I forced myself to think it was a great film that I liked. I also pretended to like The Return of the King.

Truth be told, in the very opening scene of The Passion, I was totally thrown out of the film by the speed up, slow down, speed up motion device. I was like, "Seriously, you're doing this? This was already dated the first time it was done in the French horror film Brotherhood of the Wolf in 2001." I was deflated.

And like I said, I was thrown out of the film, and wasn't able to really get into it, and the film just kept sort of bullying me out of it. Gibson is for sure a strong filmmaker, but he's all strength, and lacks what I call the film equivalent of the suspended chord in music. Everything with him has to be emboldened, and it gets tiring, like when you're reading the poetry of Roy Campbell, you get a good wash of his richness, and then the next instant you're like, "These hammer and tong lines are getting tiresome."

Like the scene where Jesus writes in the dirt: the exploding, coruscating effect of the dirt flying up like there were crackle bombs under it is, really, quite ridiculous. Why not just totally silent dirt-writing with an overhead shot? But even Gibson's quiet scenes are in their way too emphasized.

Apocalypto is a better film, but the ending never satisfied me. For me, Gibson bungled the ending, the way he filmed it with the wrap around camera and drumbeats to reveal the ships coming in. It's almost nauseatingly commandeering. It should have been a smooth flowing forward dolly following the back of Rudy Youngblood without attempting any reveal, but the ships just gradually coming into the frame as he's running and slowing down to a stop.

That being said, Gibson is capable of the "suspended chord". A perfect example in Apocalypto is when the bad guys show up. There's that still, silent shot in the forest and a thick arm comes into the frame adorned with skulls. All the dread and horror is communicated perfectly in that one moment, and the moment also serves as "flow"; a film needs good "time stream", like water.

Anyways, The Passion of the Christ wasn't a meditative/immersive experience for me, nor did it rattle or shock me in any spiritual way. I remember walking back to the car afterwards and just feeling sort of schizoid.

Then again, I'm not a fan at all of The Passion of Joan of Arc, one of its aesthetic inspirations. The repetitive dolly shots and whatnot...I don't think I've seen a film that I forgot about so quickly after watching it as that film by Dreyer.