Prentiss Riddle: Movies

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New genre: religious splatter pics?

I still haven't seen Mel Gibson's Passion and don't know whether I will, despite its status as a linguistic curiosity. Maybe if I make it a double feature with Life of Brian.

Given that Gibson's gamble is paying off at the box office, can imitators be far behind? In particular I think India, which already has a history of monstrously successful religious epics for the small screen and plenty of secular violence for the big one, would go in a big way for the hyperrealistic religious gore people say is the core of Gibson's Passion. You only have to browse a few Amar Chitra Katha comics to find plenty of material. And while Muslims are offended by pictorial representations of Muhammad, to the extent that movies about his life have been made without him appearing on screen, would that proscription apply to Muslim martyrs like Hussein?

Unfortunately, given the current state of religious extremism in India and the Muslim world, I fear that any trend toward graphic representations of religious conflict in those places would make the flap about alleged anti-Semitism in Gibson's movie seem like a walk in the park.

movies 2004.02.28 link