Oh My God

So I finally watched the contraversial The Passion of the Christ this weekend (rather fitting for the occasion, I guess). First, being a non-Christian and having extremely limited knowledge of Christianity as a whole, I'm sure I lost at least 75% of the meaning. With the rest of that 25%, though ...

Oh, God -- the gruesome violence, disturbingly graphic images, the torturous physical pain. I actually had to shut my eyes for a few spots, but I noticed that 4 people left the theatre without coming back. Of course, the graphic depiction of said historical tale was necessary because it was those wounds and that suffering that gives this story its importance and meaning. But amidst that physical terror came great mental and spiritual strength from our beloved protagonist.

Now, I've heard that this film is based on the Bible, but I also heard that certain parts were borrowed from other religious literary works -- and certainly some part embellished for the sake of filmplay. I can't tell what was what -- reenactment versus added Hollywood character development. In any case, the movie expects a fair amount of prior knowledge to understand who's who.

I don't have any expertise with which to discuss this movie, and it's been talked about like crazy already, so I'll leave this here.