The film gives us a human Jesus, but a Jesus of fallible, fallen humanity — a Jesus who could not be God. This is evident, not just in the sequences containing obvious blasphemy, such as the scene where Jesus the carpenter explains that he makes crosses for the Romans and helps crucify his fellow Jews so that God will hate him and leave him alone; or even in the scenes depicting Jesus’ persistent doubts and confusion about the nature of his identity and mission, or whether he is the Messiah at all; but everywhere you turn in the film. The fact is, Willem Dafoe’s Jesus has hardly a scene — hardly two lines of dialogue put together — in which the falseness of the character is not the dominant fact about him.

Read the complete essay by Steven D. Greydanus of Decent Films.

This film was included in the 2004 Flickerings @ Cornerstone Festival. Click here to learn more about this film's appearance at Flickerings.

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