Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "The Last Temptation of Christ" in Serbo-Croatian language version.
It's a film, also, that relies heavily on the devout to fill in the blanks, because Gibson leaves a lot of blanks. For a film about Jesus, it strangely contains very little of his words or messages, only a few fragments in flashbacks. It provides very little context about the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection. It purposefully limits its chronology to Jesus' punishment leading up to his crucifixion; Gibson is concerned with the physical torment of Jesus' body but has very little to say about the spiritual content of this sacrifice. This is why I say that the film isn't really engaged with spirituality or religion in any significant way. The film has nothing to say in and of itself. It is instead an opportunity for some devout Christians to savor the suffering of their savior, while the rest of us are left scratching our heads, wondering why Gibson chose to focus so exclusively on blood and gore rather than actually dealing with why Jesus inspired so many people to begin with...If Last Temptation is concerned with, among other things, how difficult it is to do God's will when God seems to want something really terrifying and challenging from us, then what is The Passion actually about? Scorsese's film demands engagement with its ideas and images; Gibson's film simply pummels us with two solid hours of torture. I'd suggest that the non-religious, watching Last Temptation, may very well be lost with regard to some of its references and scenarios, but that Scorsese's themes—doubt, faith, goodness and the hypocrisies of organized religions in contrast to genuine spirituality—will resonate nonetheless. I don't think that's the case with The Passion. I'm not sure what message it's even sending, or what themes are at its core.
