Starring: James Caviezel, Monica Bellucci

8 out of 10: I was always taught that the life of Jesus Christ had to be understood in three parts: his life, his death, and, perhaps most importantly, his bodily Resurrection. In The Passion of the Christ, director Mel Gibson has focused on his death, and as the title tells us, his passion -- the events leading up to Jesus' death, including his temptation, betrayal, trial, torture, and Crucifixion.

Passion is an intensely personal vision, one informed by Gibson's faith and his brand of Catholicism, and should be afforded its status as a work of art. It is also the most violent, brutal film I've ever seen. It is, in many ways, an inspired endeavor that is undeniably powerful but tragically single-minded.

By focusing on Jesus' passion, Gibson has brought to the forefront a crucial segment of the New Testament that standard Hollywood epics have always quickly shuffled offstage. Typically in films dealing with John and the Synoptic Gospels, it's been "Love thy neighbor, bang-bang-bang, It is accomplished." Here the focus on Jesus' physical torture (and thus his temptation not to go through with it) is intense and unrelenting; it is the raison d' être of this film. It's so extreme that one wonders that this film is rated "R," for it truly deserves "NC-17" if anything does.

When Gibson does try to give greater context to Jesus as more than the blood sacrifice and expiation of sin, things get considerably weaker. A scene where Jesus comes up with the concept for a high table and high chairs while his mother Mary looks on is completely outside of the text, unexpected, and really rather odd. I'd rather have had more of the Beatitudes (we're thrown a line or two), or the feeding of the 5,000, or one of the parables, instead of advances in furniture design. However, a scene where Mary rushes to Christ's side, recalling him falling as a small child, is likely to grab any parent by the shoulders and shake them, and then shake them again.

Is the film anti-Semitic? No more than it is anti-Roman, or anti-disciple. Gibson makes sure to show Christ's followers, those most informed as to his personage, who should have been the most outraged and the most willing to intercede, cowering at the edge of the crowd. Gibson pushes to the fore that most uncomfortable of Biblical principles: Original Sin. Thus, we are all guilty and condemnation falls on everyone (this tenet is most likely to be mistaken as pure belligerence on Gibson's part, by many critics). The soldiers who scourge Jesus with glee aren't Jewish and they're not Italian, they're us. Peter's famous three-time denial of Jesus is perhaps the worst betrayal, even worse than Judas', as Peter was closest to him. He watches his Rabbi's brutalization not only with passivity, but with repudiation. I may be wrong, but I don't believe Peter appears again in the film after he rejects knowing Jesus.

Caiphas, the leader of the Jewish Sanhedrin, comes off as an officious functionary, condemning Jesus because it's his job, though he is assiduous in his duty. Pilate, the Roman curator of Jerusalem, who famously washes his hands of the episode, is just as complicit, perhaps more so. He completely and utterly fails to do what is in his power to do. He can exonerate a man he believes to be innocent but does not because it's not convenient, or politically astute for him to do so. Gibson does, however, take a certain "I told you so" joy in the earthquake following Christ's death, which rents the curtain into the temple.

When there are moments of humanity sprinkled in they're like manna from heaven. A long passage is devoted to Simon of Cyrene, the Jew who was pressed into service by the Romans to help Jesus carry his cross. Simon is reluctant at first but soon defends this bleeding, dying man. There is no proselytizing here or attempts at Messianic conversion, but a simple act of kindness and decency from one person to another, even in the face of evil.

And evil is given a face in this film. It's the jeering crowds and the mocking centurions, certainly, but it is given a more concrete presence, as Satan is also on the periphery of the crowd. An androgynous creature, played by Rosalinda Celentano, Satan is more than faintly female, as if the antithesis of Mary (it carries around a mutated baby itself, which is just plain bizarre). In many ways, the character, with shorn head and emaciated countenance, is reminiscent of Carl Dreyer's Joan of Arc from 1928, another film whose main character endures a "passion" -- though this may be entirely a coincidence.

The film has undeniable beauty and Gibson has progressed as a director. Jim Caviezel has the greatest one-eyed performance in the history of film (his other is swollen shut from his brutal beatings early on). Passion is also quite scary (you actually begin to feel sorry for Judas as he's given over to demons), smart (the ass that bears Jesus into Jerusalem is most likely the maggot-ridden carcass that is the sole witness to Judas' suicide), but most of all wrenching. The torture of Jesus is a long, painful, protracted affair; well beyond sadistic, which is Gibson's intent. Gibson spares nothing in displaying the immense cruelty and barbarism entangled, even required, of Christ's sacrifice.

What does get short-shrift here is the Resurrection, which occupies no more than one minute of screen time. It's bad story-telling and a missed theological opportunity. It's bad storytelling because, after two hours of ghastly torture, the audience (Christian or not) is longing for a more solid, more confirmed resolution. It is, after all, supposed to be good news and a happy ending. Perhaps above and beyond all else, this is a film made by the believer for the believer, and it is intensely Catholic (in the church, not the universal sense). Gibson is preaching to the converted and there's a "you know the rest" feel to the truncated finish. Passion may be a tool for Christians to start a dialogue, but the film itself has little appeal (nor would it make much sense) to the uninitiated.

If the film is a success, Mel Gibson has also, for this generation at least, revitalized and transformed the Communion service (the lines just got longer for the Catholics! You thought you felt guilty before?). He's given indelible, visual snapshots of something that few would (or should have) entertained and it's hard to imagine that anyone who sees the film will be able to keep from summoning those extreme moments while partaking of it. For Christians, that may be enough to justify the bracing, frightening, upsetting experience that is Mel Gibson's singular vision, and his unruly passion.