>...often don't make good "movies", per se. Those who share the
>passion of the director love it, hence SPM's comment about
>crying. But in terms of storytelling? Instead of having a
>clear conflict-resolution that moves, it's stagnant-- more
>like a portrait. We begin with him getting beaten, and we
>aren't really shown or told why until over halfway through the
>movie, which is why the violence seems all the more fetishized
>and looks like "the point" rather than the tale of the
>Ascension.

like I said before, that's all laid out in the opening scene. And the violence IS to some degree "the point": the story is meant to evoke the suffering Jesus endured as the price of salvation - that's why it's called The Passion instead of The Ascension.


>Also, Mel turns his characters into "types", where the
>complexity might be sacrificed in order to create a
>mythological story, something larger than life. Braveheart,
>Passion, and Apocalypto all do this to a degree (Braveheart to
>a very large degree, but that's another post).

That might be a reasonable criticism for Braveheart... but the Passion? dude, it's JESUS CHRIST, aka GOD INCARNATE ... it *is* a mythological, larger than life story. That's the whole point.

You seem to want this movie to be something it's not and was never intended to be.