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| Sunday, 19 September 2004 |
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The Passion: A response to Wendell Solomons by Dayan Jayatilleka A correspondent named Wendell Solomons has written a critique of the movie The Passion of the Christ, which I reviewed in the press a fortnight ago. He has, I am afraid, also used the occasion to make an implicit and tangential yet unmistakeable criticism, not of the contents of my review, but of the fact of writing it in praise of the film. I am therefore constrained to make the following points by way of response: 1. While the larger context of any creative work is indeed pertinent, any work of art must be evaluated primarily by artistic criteria, according to its intrinsic artistic merits, not according to extrinsic political criteria. That latter approach is what is correctly dubbed 'a political correctness'. Witch-hunts are bad whether they are of left-wingers by right-wingers, or of right-wingers by left-wingers. 2. Has Mr. Solomons actually seen the movie? I wonder, because he makes no reference to it as a film, which is what it is. And if he has not, what gives him the right to comment on it, and why should we take him seriously? 3. The Passion of the Christ is a fine work of cinematic art, and I venture to suggest that those Sri Lankans who missed the film should feel slightly ashamed next year when the Oscars are awarded. 4. If the movie is anti-Semitic, so too by the same token are all movies and narratives about Jesus including the Gospels, and unfortunately we do not have a Gospel according to St. Wendell. Perhaps he should have a crack at it! His denunciation of this movie about Christ is an eerie echo of the allegations levelled against Christ at his trial! 5. Having screened it as preview among interfaith focus groups, the movie has deleted the most sensitive and arguably anti-Semitic line in the Gospels, 'may his blood be upon us and upon our children'. 6. One cannot rewrite on the basis of historical events a millennium later, the historical fact that the Romans crucified Jesus while (not 'but') the Jewish religious establishment felt so threatened by him as to frame and persecute him. To whitewash this is to ignore the class structure of occupied Palestine. Fidel Castro, hardly a follower of George Bush makes the point: 'In an even more explicit comparison with the first Christians, he told a Catholic Congress that Christ's teachings had met a lot of opposition. 'They did not prosper in high society, but germinated in the hearts of the humble people of Palestine' (Coltman p. 160) 7. To omit the role of the Jewish establishment would be as heinous as omitting the role of the German Social Democrats in the murder of Rosa Luxemburg by the Freikorps, or the perfidy of the pro-Moscow and pro-Beijing Communist parties in the tragedy of Che Guevara who was murdered while a wounded prisoner by the US trained Bolivian rangers. 8. One can hardly be pro-Bush and anti-Semitic at the same time. The Bush administration is uncritically supportive than any other US administration of the most zealous Zionist administration in Israel's history. The same Jewish lobby that reviles the movie is unmoved by the Passion of the Palestinians. Both the Christian Evangelical Right and the Jewish lobby support Bush. 9. While Mel Gibson is a religious conservative (and this is irrelevant to a judgement of the movie) it is noteworthy that he has so far not taken a stand in support of Bush at this election. 10. The Passion of The Christ has arrived in Colombo almost providentially, at a time when inter-religious relations on the island are at a crucial crossroads with the pause but not abandonment of the controversial anti-conversion Bills, and Sri Lanka's Christians feel themselves under pressure as individuals and as a community. The film therefore serves two purposes: it can help the majority to better understand the beliefs of the Christian minority, their fellow citizens, while also helping clarify Christian consciousness. While Mr. Solomons laments the packed houses and the prompting by priests that their congregations see the film, I urge that all Christian schools, not just in Colombo and not just the boys' schools, take their students (within the bounds of the movies rating) for it, while all parish youth groups should be similarly motivated. The word must go out and the entire Christian community, not the very young but not just the elderly, and certainly the youth, be guided and mobilised to see this inspiring and truly inspired film. The DVD (which sold 2 1/2 million copies by lunchtime on the very day of its release in the US a few weeks back) should be distributed to every remote Christian church/community, and rotated through every Christian home. The film is an experience of a lifetime. |
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