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It is difficult to arouse the interest of a viewer in a movie adopting unrestricted narrative (the viewer knows every thing of the story). Mel Gibson manages to instill flashbacks, sequences of torture and violence, intrinsic meditation of the protagonists [Jesus (Jim Caviezel), Judas (Luca Lionello) and Mary (Maia Morgenstern)] and music to synchronize the mood and heighten the emotion of the viewers in a movie of unrestricted narrative.

The momentum of the movie is sensed in the beginning sequence of Jesus in the Garden of Olives, which is deliberately shot under a foggy and dim setting to construct a mise-en-scene of misery and betrayal that leads to the crucifixion of Jesus. This is further intensified by bringing Satan (Rosalinda Celentan) in an aberrant costume (eyebrow-less) into mise-en-scene. Thereafter Gibson uses flashbacks at certain interval to illustrate the commonly known aspects/acts of Jesus (especially the last supper and Judas's betrayal) to ascertain (fostering familiarity) that the viewers are in parity with the diegesis. Reality is enhanced by using the true languages spoken at the time: Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin.

One of the aspects in which controversies arise is the sequences of torture and violence. No doubt that Gibson intentionally uses prolonged violence sequences to (1) contrast with the later sequences of Jesus pray for the soldiers (who torture him) to highlight the theme of forgiveness, according to Gibson himself, that rides over the movie and (2) to market the movie.

Gibson also intensively adopts slow motion to elongate the temporal dimension for the sake of intensifying the viewers' emotion on Jesus. As many scenes are clustered with subjects, shallow focus is frequently used to direct the attention of the viewers on the main protagonists. Music plays an equally salient part in effectively synchronizing (and heightening indeed) the psychological status of the viewers.

Nevertheless, it appears that Gibson communicates the Christian doctrine of forgiveness (if so) to the viewer by manipulating excessive (unnecessary) violence inconsistent to the Christian doctrine. Besides, it would be better if the Chinese translation commonly adopted in the Cantonese version (instead of the Taiwan version) of the Bible could have been used in the subtitle for the names Judas and Peter.

註：本評論純屬影評作者個人意見，並不代表本網立場。
Note: This views presented in this review is solely the views of the critic who wrote it and do not represent the stance of our website.

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