Reviews

As a huge Woody Allen fan, I was delighted and surprised by this film. I have scarcely heard anyone mention it, but for my money it is the single most comically dense of all of Woody's films. There are so many truly impressive/hilarious/memorable one-liners that I'm amazed people don't quote this movie left and right. The setting, costumes, accents all add to the hilarity of the film--truly reminiscent of a Marx Brothers romp. Really outstanding among his pre-Annie Hall films. Only rivaled by Bananas in my opinion for simple laugh value.

Unlike any other of his films, this deals with his "deep" questions of death/metaphysics in an unflaggingly light and comical fashion. For instance:

Sonja: But judgment of any system or a priori relation of phenomena exists in any rational or metaphysical or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstracted empirical concept such as being or to be or to occur in the thing itself or of the thing itself.

Boris: Yeah, I've said that many times.

Not Woody's "best" film (see Annie Hall, Manhattan, Crimes and Misdemeanors), but perhaps his most laugh-filled. Satisfying throughout. I give it a 9/10.

Any film or work of art is implicitly obliged to be an independent piece. This is not to say that one cannot or should not look to other sources for elaboration or articulation. For example, it is often fulfilling to become familiar with the complete works of a director in order to appreciate any particular film, whereby one can recognize and respect patterns and related knowledge. However, any given piece must be a complete work in and of itself. Whereas most retellings of the life of Jesus present a narrative depicting his life, as the Gospels relate, The Passion failed to present any such narrative. The film begins with the arrest of Jesus, a character with whom an unitiated viewer (read "not Christian") will be completely unfamiliar. From here, the film detailedly depicts the interaction of Jesus with Pilate, his prolonged torture, his crucifixion, and ultimately his resurrection. Yet throughout this arc, the film presents practically no conception of who this man is. There are a few brief flashbacks to moments in his life which give the viewer the idea that he is a decent man, a carpenter who loves his mother. Aside from this, one does not garner much information or emotional attachment to the man being beaten. He is effectively an anonymous Jew being graphically tortured throughout much of film. This torture, furthermore, is so prolonged and detailed that one loses interest in its severity--there's only so much scouring that one can watch and still be impressed by it. Thus, the film presented to me an anonymous, dimensionless character being between monotonously--hardly an interesting premise.

To the film's credit, there were moments of exceptional cinematography and solid acting, but they hardly makeup for the deficits in its foundation--the story.

I assume the majority of people who were terrifically moved by and enamored of this film are practicing Christians. That is perfectly fine, except that their knowledge of the Bible and feeling of a personal relationship with Jesus define their interaction with and apprehension of the film. Thus, the film is essentially reliant upon a knowledge of, interest in, and concern for Jesus from its viewing audience as they enter the theater. This is why I consider the film to be a failure. It is only successful insofar as its viewers have a pre-existing love for the story which is presented. As acknowledged above, the film is not within technical merit--it looks as good as the filmmakers could have hoped. But it is fundamentally unsatisfying in that The Passion practically conveys no narrative, deft character study, or emotional content. It is a lame and tedious visual exercise, not a story of merit unto itself. 5/10

this film is so unabashedly bombastic as to be absurd. at one point there are literally three consecutive slow motion rotating camera shots of martin lawrence, dun dun dun, ON THE PHONE with tense violin music playing in the background. the script, the acting, the directing are among the worst you'll ever see. michael bay is a scourge on this earth. he is a sore that needs to be lanced and drained.