This movie is still being banned in several countries, including Chile and Bulgaria -- presumably because it depicts Christ as having all-too-human traits. There are several other deviations from Scripture as I am familiar with it.

Judas is portrayed as the most loyal apostle -- Christ asks him to fetch the Roman guards for his execution because he knows he's supposed to die on the cross. Saul/Paul is portrayed as a manic man of fervor who thinks nothing of fabricating a story for the sake of perpetuating his religious thought. There are also many references to Magdelene's eroticism and Jesus' response to it. Jesus himself is portrayed as a crossmaker and later as someone who has constant doubts about what he is doing, but does things anyway based on his faith.

I found the expressionist interpretations to be interesting, and I liked the movie a lot, though Jesus comes across as kind of a directionless dilettante. Still, the story says just about the same things that the Gospels do, but through a more humanist filter. At the beginning of the movie is a quote from the author of the original novel that is something to the effect of reconciling the human aspect of Jesus with the supernatural aspect. I'm curious as to everyone's reaction to this movie, both as a movie and as a message in one direction or another.

Hello
Thanks,
A priest friend has just loaned me a copy of the movie and I was able to watch the first half after the kids had gone to sleep (I think it's too violent for them). I got a different impression this time: I'm beginning to think that the movie is not about Jesus at all, but about the eternal struggle between the body and the spirit, as dualists would put it.
Thanks