curiosity has a big effect on me. i've gone halfway around the world just because i was curious about a place. so for the past week or so i've had this ongoing debate with myself about whether i will see this passion flick. most of what i've read is negative. on the other hand, one friend of mine apparently loved it (he sent me an email review raving about how moving he found it to be).
also one of my classmates in my arabic class keeps trying to talk me into seeing it. she is an evangelical christian. we generally avoid talking about religion with each other, so her pitch was less theological than linguistic. she said she understood about 30% of the aramaic dialogue because of its similarity to arabic. in other words, she thinks i should see the film because it would be good practice. i replied that it would probably be even better practice if we just rented a film in arabic, but she didn't think so: "they talk to fast in arab films, and it's all 'amiyya [regional dialects of arabic and not the modern standard that we are learning]. in "the passion" the aramaic dialogue is very slow and enunciated. the aramaic was easier to understand than arabic in the arabic films i have tried to watch."
she may have a point. after all, the actors in "the passion" don't speak aramaic. i can imagine that as they filmed each scene there was probably a frustrated scholar of aramaic sitting behind the camera yelling "no no no! it's a 'Haa' not a 'haa!' and we need more phlem when you do that 'kh' sound! mel, make them do it again!" the actors were probably speaking slowly just to make sure they hit every syllable correctly. take it from someone who once was bar mitzvahed, it is very difficult to recite something correctly from memory when you do not understand the language. so i guess there is some logic to what my classmate was saying.
but then again, most of the film is not aramaic conversation. all of the reviews i have read, pro and con, seem to agree on that point. but i am still curious. the the over-the-top hype surrounding the film normally would turn me off. but the sharply divided opinions i am hearing from different people can make it hard to resist. then there's the conflicting stories i hear about whether the film is anti-semitic lots of people seem utterly convinced that it is, but others insist it is not. that alone makes me want to see it. when something is this controversial and produces such different opinions in different people, i usually want to take a look to make up my own mind.
so just when i think maybe i should go... i read sean paul kelley's review. now i think i'm leaning towards not going again. controversy aside, it sounds like just the just the act of sitting through the film would be unpleasant. there are limits to my curiosity.
