ShadowDance

Isn't two hours just a little too long for a snuff film?


Mel "It's raining blood, hallelujah" Gibson continues his holy quest to provide head start assistance to medical students the world over. And now he gives us his take on the greatest story ever told a couple bazillion times. Naturally, as a "conservative" Catholic, Mel believes in interpreting Jesus' values of peace and love by treating the audience to extremely graphic and protracted depictions of the most hideous tortures imaginable--all in spine rattling digital cinemascope and THX Dolby surround sound. At least he's not preaching a message; he's making Dawn of the Dead seem like a Labor Day picnic. The idea that this spectacular viscera fest is "realistic" is beside the point--the fetishistically rendered and copious attention to physical detail bears all the hallmarks of a sick mind--a mind determined that the audience share joyfully in gratuitous ultraviolence. Also beside the point is the charge that the film is anti-Semitic--it's anti-everybody, except maybe for psychotic sado-masochists.

The Spanish Inquisition corollary operates here: excruciating pain and an ugly execution are good for the soul. Ergo, I seem to be mistaken about what era we're living in, I thought this was the 21st century but it seems as if the clock has been reset to be medieval Europe, or perhaps ancient Rome, when people being torn apart by wild animals or being slowly dismembered to death was the primeval equivalent of Public Television.

Gibson brooks no compromises on his dementia. As far as he's concerned, even his own wife (an Episcopalian) is going to hell, and frankly, I'll be happy to join her as long as it keeps me as far away as possible from a gore-worshipping psycho like him.