Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ has been the most anticipated film of the last… well, it seems like the last half-decade. A little over a year ago, it couldn’t find a distributor and was troubled with a tumultuous production. Now it’s the must-see event of the year. Controversy has swirled around its alleged anti-Semitism, the debate over whether it was given a papal ‘thumbs up’ and its brutal depiction of over-the-top violence.

Perhaps the talk is warranted. It is true that Gibson is a devout Catholic, and has suggested that he was, ahem, inspired to make the film. His family has been associated with a radical sect of Catholicism that rejects anything that has happened in the church since the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council -- known to many as ‘Vatican II’ -- where many reforms were made to modernise and liberalise the Catholic faith. To top it off, Gibson’s father has publicly made statements that are anti-Semitic and deny the Holocaust of the Jews during the Second World War. It’s no surprise this context has created the controversy and dialogue The Passion has seen in the last year.

This uproar must be considered closely. As a director, Gibson’s goal was simple. He wanted to vividly depict Christ’s suffering in his last 12 hours -- his “Passion,” as it was known before the word evolved to mean something romantic. For Gibson, this meant a conservative Catholic version of the Gospel where no details of the trial and torture of Christ are spared.

The Passion must be considered with this intention in mind. It is thus a violent, gruesome film, full of spurting, spraying blood, lacerating skin, crunching bones, and beaten, bruised flesh. Despite sterilised versions in children’s Sunday school stories and the sand and sword epics of the past, the Passion, as described in the Bible, was a gruesome, gory event. Jesus was betrayed to Jewish religious leaders by one of his own disciples. He was made to endure two mock trials, was beaten and whipped to a bloody pulp, and then hung on a cross until he died. According to the Gospel, Jesus did this out of love for humankind.

Gibson has created a moving portrayal of the sacrifice. It is relatively free of proselytising images, until the near the very end. Instead, it focuses on documenting and dramatising a story that most everyone knows at least something about. Jesus’ message is told in flashbacks as he undergoes his punishment, but the point of this movie is that punishment.

The Passion’s basic structure is the 14 Stations of the Cross from popular Catholic lore. We first see Jesus (played by James Caveizel, complete with creepy, hazel eyes that were painted in digitally) struggling with doubt and temptation in a moonlit forest. From there, with brutal detail, the film moves along to his capture, trial, conviction, torture, and death. It is beautifully shot using hushed earth tones and lush illumination, which often looks like Renaissance painting. Venerated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion, The Right Stuff) is at his best here, creating a dusty, sun baked Mediterranean landscape. Accuracy is a selling point for the film. All dialogue is in Aramaic and Latin and is subtitled. The costumes invoke a sense of authenticity, from the squeaking leather vests of the Roman soldiers to the robes of Jerusalem’s residents.

The much-ballyhooed anti-Semitism turns out to be little more than hype. One simply cannot make the case for an unflattering portrayal of Jews. It does not exist. The religious Jewish establishment, lead by single-minded leader Caiphas (Mattia Sbragia), is mostly steadfast in insisting on Jesus’ execution, but even it is marked with dissent. The paid off crowd that calls for his death seems as motivated as any mob but, again, it too has pools of discord. I suspect charges of anti-Semitism are the product of an unreasonably sensitive viewer (or, more cynically, a rumour created by a worried producer trying to generate a buzz).

In fact, the most despicably represented group are the bestial Roman soldiers who, cajoled on by a hooded Satan looking on from the crowd, take great pleasure in Christ’s suffering. But even Pontius Pilate (played brilliantly by Hristo Naumov Shopov), the Roman governor who sentences Jesus to his death by washing his hands of the matter, is deeply conflicted. He is torn between preventing the death of an innocent, unknown man and managing the shifting balance of power between his empire and its colony.

The Passion has been the subject of numerous works of art in Western culture, from literature, to sculpture, to film. In this tradition of Michelangelo, Milton, and Scorcese, Gibson has made his own pietà. Here is a portrayal of, arguably, the starting point and central event in Western civilisation. It is how many artists, Gibson included, imagine the origin of their culture.

For a movie so steeped in a religion’s central event, and made by a fundamentalist, the film is relatively free of any attempts at conversion. The two major proselytising images -- Jesus insisting that salvation occurs only through him, and Mary looking directly into the camera while holding the body of her son -- come near the end, and are jarring. Mostly, the movie is about Jesus’ simple message: love. He is shown commanding his followers to love one another as he has loved them. He asks his followers to love even their enemies. Gibson makes it clear that this is all Christ asked in return for his sacrifice.

It is startling to think that Gibson would make such a statement. The message seems contrary to the pontificating of many religious leaders, from right-wing-Baptist-minister-television personalities who confuse religion with politics, to a president that claims he is the instrument of a divinely ordained war. The film reclaims, purposefully or otherwise, the actions of a martyr who thought he was saving humankind.

I was once told by a very wise man that there is no such thing as a bad religion, but there are plenty of bad religious. And while I am hardly on the road to Damascus, about to be struck by conversion, I can, as a non-Christian, appreciate what the film is about. Because before having his name sullied by meaningless prayer meetings in the Oval Office, genocidal colonialism, worshipping the messenger over the message, the Crusades, pedophilia by clergy, and residential schools, there was an obscure carpenter who endured untold suffering and death out of love for his fellow humans.

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