Ref. 13129-36The Rt Rev Michael Doe, the Bishop of Swindon, gives his view on The Passion Of The Christ after seeing the film this week

MEL Gibson's Passion is just a bad film.

It tells the story of the last days of Jesus of Nazareth in a slow ponderous way, with the usual Hollywood clichs of increasing the emotion by playing the violins louder and close-ups of young women with tears running down beautifully made-up faces.

The character of King Herod is borrowed directly from Jesus Christ Superstar.

The film is remarkable for only two things: its use of the original languages (although it is highly dubious whether a Galilean peasant would have known Latin) and the violence.

Maybe Christian preachers need to be reminded how cruel was this death.

We can talk far too glibly of the suffering of Christ. But the violence here becomes gratuitous and exploitative, almost to the point of a horror film more worthy of Gibson's Mad Max.

Is it anti-Semitic?

Gibson, with his own religious agenda partly inherited from the right-wing Catholicism of his father, certainly puts the blame on the Jews rather than the Romans.

Christians would claim that we all bear the guilt.

The religious establishment of Jesus' day has been mirrored by many since, including the atheistic ideologies, which put so many to death in the 20th century.

My greatest criticism of this film is that it has no context and therefore no meaning.

Apart from some flashbacks there is little to suggest who Jesus was and why he became both a threat and a victim.

The Biblical story of the death of Jesus is not so much about its violence but the way in which he shares our pain and suffering and shows the way through to a different kind of life.

Maybe those who do not know the story will be brought face-to-face with its stark reality by this film, but whether they will encounter its meaning of love, forgiveness and hope is a different matter.