It gives The Duke no pleasure to announce that in The Passion Of The Christ, Mel Gibson has crafted one of my favourite films of all ever. Still fairly secure in its placing amidst the Top Three Flicks Of 2004, only Oldboy has really offered any serious competition as of yet. And anyway, it's technically a 2003 number.
Also, I was rather alarmed earlier today when, reflecting on this state of events with a good friend, Sir George, I realized that I don't actually dislike any of the flicks Gibson has directed. In fact, truth be told, I kinda rather like them. To take this matter to a statistical head, I own two-thirds of Mel Gibson's filmography on DVD. Only Man Without A Face is missing from the (shudder) Complete Collection.
I guess it makes sense. The three films he has made thus far all basically tell the same story. Some fella, a misunderstood outsider type, is persecuted and attacked, then ends up getting a dose of the good ol' torture, either mentally, as in Man Without A Face (which should by all rights be called Fella With A Face That's Burned A Bit On One Side), or physically as in the spectacularly barbaric ending of Braveheart, or both, as in this flick discussed herein, The Passionate Christs or whatever.
Anyone who follows The Duke's intellectually challenging musings on cinema will know that Passion Of The Christ was destined to become a firm favorite. It combines two of my most beloved of filmic genres, the exploitation flick and the religious epic, and better yet, looks like one of those Titian paintings I so adore.
I've saw the damn thing five times by now, and today the DVD arrived in Mondo Towers. Thus, I can delete the copy I downloaded a few months back.
Sorry Mel Gibson, but I still saw the damn thing twice in the cinema and anyway, although you seem to have maybe forgotten about a fair old portion of his philosophical musings, Jesus used to go on quite a bit about the old "forgiveness" and so on.
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