I'm glad I'm finally through with The Passion Of The Christ, I must say. There were some parts that were hard to watch, and I had to turn my head away, especially when they knocked Jesus' hands against the cross. Although the brutality he received before was also already bad, and some say it was the worst. Many say the brutality and bloodshed is too much in this movie, but I wonder - who can tell it wasn't so?
Just think back a few-hundred years when people were still malicious and retarded enough to burn people who they had declared to be witches for one or the other reason. Or people were threatened to be sentenced to death for claiming planet Earth isn't flat. Who tells me that a few hundred years before that, maybe people were not even crazier, more evil, narrow-minded and hungry for blood?
And about all the discussion about whether it includes anti-semitic sentiments I'd say, the movie blames all kinds of people equally, and even though Jesus says - It is he who delivered me to you who has the greater sin. - the hypocrisy of the Romans was equally evil. I mean, nobody really forced the Governor to ask for Jesus' execution. He was just afraid to lose his face, although he didn't believe that Jesus earned the punishment he then put on him. And the Romans that executed him enjoyed doing so, even though they'd probably say nowadays they only did their job.
I think Jews who feel it's a movie all against them should take the focus away from the group of people that are portrayed as Jews in the movie. The focus of the movie is Jesus, and the people around are equally guilty, because nobody stopped it. Though they also showed people among the Romans and among the Jews who defended Jesus. I personally think the movie was balanced concerning who's to blame. In the end Jesus hasn't put the blame on anybody and it was his choice, and he believes it was God's choice.
I thought the movie was well-done concerning the guidance of the audience through the story. In the beginning and at the end the story is summarized, but in the middle of the movie you feel as if it were all in real-time and probably takes as much time as it's taken until Jesus was finally nailed against the cross. It all takes ages, all the thrashing and the suffering. It seems quite realistic.
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