Saw the film last night. I think it was visually beautiful. I know it's not beautiful in the usual sense of the word but... well, maybe you see what I mean. Also from a linguistic point of view I would like to bow to Gibson for using Aramaic and Latin among others instead of English. The story was not that familiar to me, even though I do remember some religion class in primary school when we watched (the crucifiction in that one probably was done by ropes...). It took me a long time to realise that one guy was Herod. The identity of what in the end turned out to be Satan.. at one point I actually thought he (she? Satan was played by Rosalinda Celentano) could be God in mortal disguise. The only negative thing that I got from the movie was the (to me) inadequate explaining of the cultural background. I do not have the necessary knowledge to be able to place Caiaphas & co., and the Roman chief guy (I don't know who he is, either... later: Pontius Pilate, that's the guy!) in their rightful places in the culture. I could see they all held a lot of power but did not know why. And the truly incomprehensible thing was that Caiaphas accused Jesus of blasphemy... that I just don't understand. Again, the inadequate cultural background knowledge. I really do think this was one of the best films I've ever seen; where did all the criticism come from?
What this movie made me think was the rating basis. Why was it K-18? Many movies rated K-15 have a whole lot more blood and guts shown quite explicitly but they're still K-15. Is it so that when blood and death is shown unrealisticly it is more acceptable? And this being the reason why 'The Passion of the Christ' is K-18? But how is violence more acceptable if it is out of the realm of possibility; in my opinion, it should be the other way around. When violence and its consequences are portrayed realistically, the rating should be lower as it gives a real idea what really happens when you whup someone like that, instead of telling that when you cut someone's head of they dance around comically hands waving around for several seconds afterwords. The unreal depiction I find a whole lot more harmful and should therefore have higher ratings. The problem is that these unreal blood-and-gore films tend to be targeted to teenagers (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Jeepers Creepers...). There's probably little point in making these unrealistic film to people over the age of eightteen. At the least, the audience would consist solely on stereotypical men in their twenties to whom cleaning means putting the porn films in alphabetical order.
