I must say, as a new IMDb user I find this place to express one views a rather welcome find. Cathartic to say the least. Certain films haunt me. "The Gospel According to St Matthew" is one of them. The only possible explanation is the passion of its maker. Everything about it is so real that I remember the first time I saw it, I felt I had met Jesus. My relationship with Jesus had been torturous at best. Raised catholic by very catholic pre- Vatican Council parents. So, part of my rebellion had always been underlined by moving away from that pathology as far away as possible. Pasolini however, a Marxist homosexual, showed me a human side of the man I was suppose to follow that made sense, that touched me. Enrique Irazoqui plays Jesus in a way that may explain everything. He is just a guy but in his eyes, in his eyes there is something I've never seen before. Compassion without fake undertones. It chilled me. I loved him. I wanted to follow him. Pasolini wasn't trying to sell me anything, he wasn't trying to convert anyone he was doing what an artist, a real artist does. He was sharing his vision with me, with us. When people talk about movie experiences, this is the film that comes to my mind first. I'm glad to have to opportunity to share this with you.

I think I&#39;ve seen most, if not all, of the movies dealing with the life of Jesus. (There haven&#39;t been that many.) This is without a doubt the most different presentation I&#39;ve ever seen. It&#39;s oddly captivating because of the stark visual contrasts and the direct and different approach used by the director concerning the teachings of Christ. Instead of hearing Jesus&#39; small sermons in context of where and when he said them, much of it is just a head shot of him and many of his comments are all lumped together. It&#39;s actually too much to take in at one time - many of Jesus famous statements and no time to digest any of them. <br/><br/>There are a few shots of Jesus performing miracles, intermingling with all kinds of people, must mainly it&#39;s a lot of His rhetoric with nothing in the background. It&#39;s as if they tried to cram as much as Christ&#39;s profound statements into the two-hour movie as they could, so they come rapid-fire. And, since the dialog is in Italian, you have to read all the subtitles to know what he&#39;s saying and they are printed in the King James English! That is difficult for most people today to understand, so it really is a must that you&#39;ve already read the Gospels in modern translations to know what Jesus much of the time. That&#39;s because some of the King James words are not ones we are familiar with today, or they have the opposite meaning than they do today. Yet, saying all that, I still found this oddly fascinating and I am not complaining about how they presented it. However, I don&#39;t think it would win any converts because most secular viewers would be bored to death with this film. That, and all the King James English, make the sermons way too difficult to comprehend. <br/><br/>The film is slow moving in many spots and today&#39;s movie viewer would be challenged to stick with this for the full two-and-a-quarter hours. To be honest, this isn&#39;t what most people - believers and non-believers - would call great entertainment. If cinematography means something special to you, you&#39;ll like this film better than someone just watching for the story<br/><br/>I could also nitpick and make fun of how all the men&#39;s hairstyles looked in here, which was mainly 1960 Italian, not First Century Middle Eastern, but that&#39;s incidental. I thought Mary looked realistic and Jesus certainly was portrayed with an intense and captivating face. John The Baptist, by the way, immersed people in the Jordan River. He did not kneel on a boulder and pour a handful of water on their head, as pictured in this film.<br/><br/>Being that Pier Paolo Pasolini, the director and writer of this film, was a Marxist rebel, it&#39;s obvious he liked Jesus for His anti-establishment words. Jesus was the most radical man ever to step on this planet. Just read his words. He said things that really shook up people back then, and still do today. He was very tough on the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders of the day and you can tell the director loves that. I do wish, however, that Pasolini hadn&#39;t overemphasized that side of Jesus and neglected much of the Lord&#39;s warmth and compassion that is written about in all the gospels. In this film, Christ comes across as ultra-serious, a hard-nosed and often cold individual, and sometimes very judgmental...but read the gospels and you&#39;ll find him mostly the opposite.<br/><br/>The music in here was excellent. Playing the old Negro spiritual, &quot;Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child&quot; by Odetta, a few times was a very nice touch, and a profound statement at the same time.<br/><br/>Overall, I&#39;m glad I finally was able to see this film. It was worth the time, and some of it is as interesting (and still Scripturally accurate) presentation of Christ I have seen on film, but I don&#39;t know if I watch it again......probably.

Okay, so maybe not quite, but this is still an excellent film, by far the best depiction of the last days of Jesus&#39;s life. By taking the view that Jesus was a revolutionary rather than emphasising the religious aspects the film succeeds in presenting a unique view of the life, and death, of Jesus and the reactions of his followers. There are no mystical halos descending from heaven, no &quot;angelic music&quot; and none of the other cliches that Hollywood&#39;s attempts at presenting the story usually contain. Instead the humanity of those who lived the story comes through, and by doing this the film takes on emotional, even religious intensity totally lacking in other, larger budget depictions of Christ. Possibly the most moving part of all is the moment Peter realises he has disowned Jesus three times. This isn&#39;t portrayed as some great epic biblical act, the denial of the Messiah, but rather as the actions of a man, scared for himself, who, when he realises that he has betrayed his friend runs away in shame sobbing uncontrollably. the scene is given even more dramatic impact through the music, taken from Bach&#39;s St Matthews Passion, which perfectly fits the mood of the moment. Overall this is a brilliant film and anyone remotely interested in either good film making, the relationships between human beings under pressure, or the final days of Christ should see it.