gavin6942 A group of actors put on an unorthodox, but acclaimed Passion Play which incites the opposition of the Catholic Church while the actors' lives themselves begin to mirror the Passion itself.I imagine what makes this movie so appreciated is its parallels between the Bible stories and the lives of the actors. And, indeed, this is interesting and surely required some clever writing and whatnot.But what made it enjoyable for me was the exploration of the controversy. Who was the real Jesus? Who was his father? Did he have a beard? What do we really know about him? Without being blasphemous, I think the film touched on some important points, because what we generally believe may not be the same as what the record reveals.

MartinHafer Okay, at the outset I must point out that some who watch this film might be offended. The passion play that is portrayed in the film contains quite a bit of non-Biblical material that tends to humanize Jesus and de-emphasize his divinity. A literal interpretation of the life and death of Christ, this is not! Also, Catholic hierarchy are deliberately compared to the Pharisees who persecuted Jesus and some Catholics might feel very uncomfortable with this. In addition, in parts of the play, Jesus is played naked. At first, this shocked me, but this was much more accurate than the usual loincloth portrayal of him--shocking, but not sacrilegious to me. So parents might want to think twice about letting the kids see this, or at least the would want to discuss the film with them.The film started relatively slowly, so I recommend you suspend your judgment until you've seen it all. A relatively unknown actor is asked by a hypocritical priest to re-write and perform the passion play at a shrine in Montreal, Canada. The play is quite a departure from the norm, as some of the actors are clearly not the "nice" sort of folks you'd expect to be doing religious plays. For example, one does voice dubbing for pornographic films and another does crappy ads that rely on her body more than her acting skills (a 20th century variation on followers like Mary Magdalene and other sinners--this was clever). These choices actually made sense as did many of the occurrences in the film because they were meant to be symbolic of the life of Christ. The characters themselves didn't realize this, but throughout the film they mirror the story from the Gospels. After a while, the actor who plays Jesus begins to lose himself in the role--acting out scenes such as chasing the money-lenders out of the temple and the actual death and resurrection of Christ. All the parallels are too many to repeat here, but someone with a decent knowledge of the life of Jesus will often notice the parallels.In many ways, the final results can be both affirming to believers yet frustrating as well. Frustration at some of the offensive lines of dialog and the way they've made the life of Christ rather revisionistic (saying that salvation is an individual thing--de-emphasizing Christ's part in this and making it more "touchy-feely"). But the script is so very clever and manages to also make Jesus come alive, in a sense, as the central messages are proclaimed well. Plus, after the death of Jesus in the film, it does a good job of showing how the message and legacy continues. Overall, an excellent and compelling film that is sure to make an impact on the viewer.By the way, this film was released on DVD by Koch-Lorber. While this company has a great track record for bringing independent and foreign films to DVDs, they also usually lack any sort of meaningful bonus materials. For the feature film, I give it an A. For the extras, I give them a D-.PS--Like the great BARBARIAN INVASIONS (also by the same director and starring some of the same cast), this film was highly critical of the Canadian health care system--showing it was being uncaring and overwhelmed. These two films make an interesting counter-point to Michael Moore's SICKO, which tends to glorify this same system!

Leos Erp Brilliant piece of movie, especially fragments of road show! Movie talks about basic human values, vs. hypocrisy of the religion and society; talks about real artists and affectation of mediocrity found in show business, relationships and art. A movie that doesn't belong to high profit type of Hollywood junk production for wide masses. It contains bright and simple thoughts, for the way to soul calmness that we have forgotten... The real religion is the one, there aren't institution and leaders, only human being and love. This is movie about urban kind of the Christ, but Christ isn't person, Christ is a state of soul. Everyone can do it with simplicity, truth and liberty of your life. God is in you, not on the sky or in church corporations! Love&Sun, LeOS

NewHorizons37 I respectfully suggest to the people who find this film sacrilegious, that you have missed the point. The Daniel character lived according to Jesus' teachings, and was persecuted for it, just as Jesus had been. Both men were persecuted by the establishment who were threatened by his teachings because they could not live to such holy standards. The standards themselves were exalted in the film. This was shown in many ways, one of which was how the lives of all the members of the troupe improved once they joined Daniel in doing the Play (of course analogous to Jesus' disciples.)The complaint that the films smears the priesthood by having the priest in the film be in a sexual relationship with a woman acting in the Passion Play -- that complaint seems awfully quaint now, after the huge real-life sexual abuse scandal involving so many priests. At least the priest in this movie was having a consensual relationship with an adult.Yes, the clergy were depicted as sinful and corrupt, as were the businesspeople (think of the people making the TV commercial, to give just one example). The clergy were not singled out. It was PEOPLE IN POWER, across the board. Their power meant more to them than living by the right principles. They wanted to give the APPEARANCE of living right in order to hold on to their power, but not actually LIVE according to those principles. True of most people today. Really a great film which to me says, the way to glorify Jesus is to live for what he stood for, not just keep up appearances.