The Passion

I watched 'The Passion' today with Vito. I had to fork out Php192.00 for 2 tickets, another Php 115.00 for a bucket of popcorn and two glasses of iced tea. If the wife and my other son joined us, I would have spent more than Php600. No wonder people patronize film pirates.

I admit I watched the movie, despite the scandalous ticket prices, because of the hype. They said there's too much gore and blood that it's rated R (actually R-13 here. I think we're the only one with the R-13 rating. Can our kids take violence and gore more maturely than foreign kids?) Imagine an R rated scriptures-based film on Christ. It's not Scorsese (Last Temptation of Christ) and its R? This I have to see, and so we went.

This is not the typical religious movie. Old movies on Christ shown on TV have that serene, calming, almost boring quality. Sometimes Christ's face is not even shown, giving that undescribable effect, na pang-bibliya. Watching 'The Passion' is another experience. You know the story. You anticipate the subtitles. You listen to the dialogue even if its spoken in dead languages. You know what's going to happen. But still be enthralled and anxiously wait for the next scenes.

Real life, movie/TV, mass media violence, cenaculos, penitensiyas, and too much 'Faces of Death' have desensitized me. But the movie reinforces what has been force-fed us over the years, that Christ is the Savior. It should remind every Christian, especially the convenient Christians, that His death should not be for naught.