MEL GIBSON’S reconstruction of the Passion is the most controversial horror film Hollywood has made since The Exorcist. It is not for faint hearts. The biblical “facts” are hitched to scenes of such intense, visceral realism that you physically flinch from the cruelty. It’s almost impossible not to be moved by Jim Caviezel’s vulnerability as Christ, even if the idea that he is no “mere” man is never in doubt. From the moment he is betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is treated like a lump of meat.

It’s a mesmerising, monolithic performance. Caviezel drips with sweat from the first chilly minute, and staggers through most of the film with one eye permanently closed after having his face pulped by Jewish soldiers within seconds of his arrest. What gives his humiliation such unexpected authenticity is the Aramaic (spoken by the Hebrews) and “street Latin” (adopted by the Romans), even if it sounds like pure Orc to untutored ears.

But it’s the scenes where Christ is scourged by drunken Romans that turn the stomach. Gibson utilises all the formidable Hollywood special effects in his power to capture details that would have made the painter Grünewald blanch. Using whips with iron-tipped hooks, the torturers rip strips of flesh off Christ’s back, and then flip him over to “do” the other side.

This is not a heroic “entertainment”. Nor can it possibly be described as an intellectual or spiritual challenge. It is first and foremost a film: an emotional orgy where special effects take the place of reason. The appetite of the mob makes a nonsense of Pontius Pilate’s feeble attempts at political diplomacy.

But let us not begrudge Gibson; he has given the politics a serious spine. Pilate (a compellingly “humane” Hristo Naumov Shopov) is the Roman consul caught between a rock and a harder place, and his fears are one of the best worked points in the film. The governor is in danger of inciting a regional rebellion if he frees Christ, or indeed crucifies him. The Pharisees have the Roman peacekeeper over a barrel, but Gibson is careful to plant dissenting orthodox voices in their midst.

The atmosphere is one of sharks in a feeding frenzy, counterpointed by the agonised face of Maia Morgenstern’s luminous Mary. Claims that the film is anti-Semitic are wildly inappropriate. The mob is far more enamoured of the scent of blood than arguments about blasphemy. The Roman soldiers are drunk on sadism. In their blundering, anarchic enthusiasm, they almost kill Christ several times before they can get him up Calvary.

Perhaps Gibson leans too heavily on old horror-movie staples. One might query the eerie presence of Satan as a cowled and sexually ambiguous monklike figure who ghosts through the crowd with a look of amusement. But it’s a spicy, and fitting, piece of imagination, just like the maggot that wriggles from his left nostril to his right. The rabble of taunting children who hound Judas to his tree have their faces transfigured into devilish goblins. And a teardrop from Heaven hits the ground like a bomb when Caviezel, as Christ, finally expires. But they are modest indulgences in the awesome context.

Gibson’s other notorious “historical” epic, Braveheart, crudely fiddled with the facts and inspired a string of unsavoury racist incidents in Scotland. These already look like bunfights compared to the strong feelings unleashed by The Passion of the Christ. Does it have the power to put people back in touch with their faith? Does it have the evangelical might to convert non-believers into Christians? Despite Gibson’s belief in the transforming power of his masterpiece, I seriously doubt a Hollywood film is capable of doing either. That would be miraculous.

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