Movie Review

Directed by Mel Gibson, Starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus, 2 hours 40 minutes, 2004.

Consider the possibility that this is simply a propaganda film for imperialism in a fearful post 9/11 world. Wild paranoia? There are several theological themes in the movie that help lead to this view though we can be easily distracted by the lush cinematography, the gratuitous violence and the pseudo history.

While the anti-Semitism of the film has been much commented on, less apparent is the imperial view portrayed in the lingering court scenes where the gentle Pilate plays off against a raucous Jewish leadership. The implication is that Jesus is crucified because the local provincial leadership cannot take care of its own business; a local government controlled by benign imperial forces. Contemporary images abound in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia and Northern Ireland. These occupations are always cloaked in a discourse of freedom and liberation for empire always sees itself as a civilizing project.

Dolorism is a term used to describe a particular spirituality of the middle Ages that gained little traction in Anglican circles. Dolorism comes from the Latin dolor (pain) and speaks of a spirituality of resignation to pain and sorrow. Unfortunately it has been allied with imperial powers to keep the poor and marginalized in their place. People protesting their misery and poverty are told to bear their crosses as Jesus did and they will receive their just reward in heaven. It is crude but remarkably effective.

The whipping and beating of Jesus is interminable and intolerable. Just when you think it is over it starts up again. Jesus is depicted with a super human endurance of torture. The model of Christian discipleship pictured here is resignation to suffering rather than attempt to transform suffering in the world. Because it is unlikely that any human could survive such a brutal onslaught the doctrine of the Incarnation is betrayed and a form of the heresy called monophysitism is portrayed. It is a lovely word that means that only one (monos) form of being is shown by Jesus, i.e. The Divine. Far from an ancient and benighted view it is present whenever Jesus is portrayed in superhuman form in chorus and song. It is no accident that the title of the film uses only Jesus' messianic title. It is ironic that the attempt to depict his human experience makes him more God-like than human.

The Doctrine of the Atonement as expiatory sacrifice (as distinct from notions of Rescue and Model) under girds the film. This is a view of the cross as a sacrificial shedding of blood enacted to achieve an abstract mediation between God and Humanity. Through suffering Christ makes satisfaction to God whose honour has been violated by humanity's sinfulness. The weight of sin is so great that it can only be borne or paid for by a God-Man. It is a view of Atonement from the Middle Ages, propounded by Anselm based on a feudal theory of "honour and satisfaction" that makes little sense in our world in personal or in political terms. It is a sadistic view of God whose honour has been violated and who seeks satisfaction through suffering. It would seem silly except that Empire always has to guard its honour.

This film gives a very popular but, in my view discredited, version of the Passion Story. It is politically dangerous because the imperial occupiers can continue to reign unimpeded (Four More Years!) and the occupied are told to shoulder their crosses and pains in sorrowful resignation. A more contemporary view of Jesus, albeit with its own political dangers (!) is of a Jesus whose passionate message of The Reign of God is to the poor and marginalized. It is this model of Atonement as Meaning or Model rather than Sacrifice that more properly occupies our attention in Holy Week. Watch this movie with a hermeneutic of suspicion that you are being snowed.