Jesus (Jim Caviezel) on the Cross in a scene from The Passion of The Christ, a film by Mel Gibson. Photo: Philippe Antonello
'An attempt at biblical and Catholic accuracy at times overrides cinematic fluency and style. And that is why Christians should be wary of celebrating The Passion of the Christ at all costs.'

Catherine von Ruhland says that Mel Gibson's attempt to follow biblical and Catholic accuracy in The Passion of the Christ should make Christians wary of celebrating the film

Excessively violent, cinematically skewed, spiritually-themed and a Hollywood star's vanity project to boot.

With less bloodshed and more science fiction, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ could so easily have become John Travolta's Scientology-fuelled Battlefield Earth. Both producers after all made a film purely to express their faith.

And that does not necessarily make a good film. In spite of all those American Christians packing out US showings (in the Bible Belt, individual multiplexes have scheduled it 24/7 across their entire collection of screens), and British believers expectant for a supreme evangelistic opportunity when The Passion of the Christ is released here on March 26.

It's not that there has never before been a quality film focusing on the life of Christ. Franco Zefferelli's six hour epic Jesus of Nazareth plays out his entire life from birth to ascension. Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St Matthew is an acknowledged classic of the genre. But The Passion of the Christ is not of their ilk.

Claims that the film is anti-Semitic have fuelled controversy. In fact, there is a whole host of groups who get a raw deal throughout Gibson's film.

Roman soldiers certainly don't come out of it well, every single child on screen (apart from the boy Jesus) turns out to be a demon - who always look like dwarves - and Satan, in human form, appears transsexual ('it' is played by a woman).

But it is the level of violence which prospective viewers should be warned about. Hardened critics have found parts of it unwatchable.

The scourging of Jesus with cat o' nine tails is unremitting, gratuitous and arguably pornographic. Gibson seems to want viewers, and presumably believers especially to have their faces rubbed in the blood of the Lord.

Brutality

Could it be that the director is suggesting that this obscene brutality is what we do to God every time we sin - and don't you forget it? Or, if every age needs its own image of Jesus, then this bloodied, tortured vision reflects the overriding violence of the twentieth century just gone and the depth of flesh-harm necessary to reach our complacent and numbed Western souls?

Ironically, it only serves to emotionally distance the audience from Jim Caviezel's broken Jesus. I expected to weep over this Passion but it largely left me cold. I was more moved by Mary's parallel trek to the foot of the Cross.

Jim Caviezel has played the 'Christ figure' before as Private Witt in Terrence Malick's marvellous The Thin Red Line, laying down his life for his platoon. But here his personality seems lost beneath those terrible wounds. A flashback to happier times with Jesus joking with his mother over a table he had crafted is, like the table (a Conran derivative), merely unconvincing.

Tiresome

Neither does one closed eye cancel out Jesus' silent, piercing look (which probably reached its zenith with Robert Powell for Zefferelli). With slow motion incident after slow motion incident of Jesus falling under the weight of the cross, it becomes visually tiresome. An attempt at biblical and Catholic accuracy at times overrides cinematic fluency and style.

And that is why Christians should be wary of celebrating The Passion of the Christ at all costs. There is a terrible tendency among some believers to back Christian art simply because it is Christian while totally disregarding its quality. That why pictures of bunny rabbits along with Bible quotes appear outside churches at Easter.

Christians too have spent many decades campaigning against screen violence. It is deeply ironic, then, that they now believe they can use this film to share their faith with non-believing cinemagoers whose taste in movies they have so long belittled.

The Passion of the Christ (18), directed by Mel Gibson, starring Jim Caviezel, on UK general release from March 26.

• Read Steve Tomkins' review of the film

• Read Steve's account of the development of Christian anti-Semitism

• Join in with the discussion about the film