I love this movie so much

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A group of actors put on an unorthodox, but acclaimed Passion Play which incites the opposition of the Catholic Church while the actors' lives themselves begin to mirror the Passion itself.I imagine what makes this movie so appreciated is its parallels between the Bible stories and the lives of the actors. And, indeed, this is interesting and surely required some clever writing and whatnot.But what made it enjoyable for me was the exploration of the controversy. Who was the real Jesus? Who was his father? Did he have a beard? What do we really know about him? Without being blasphemous, I think the film touched on some important points, because what we generally believe may not be the same as what the record reveals.

Daniel Coulombe (Lothaire Bluteau) is asked to modernize a passion play written 35 years ago. He gathers people from the play, dubbing artists who sometimes dub porn, and a model with little experience. He incorporates newer controversial theories on Jesus and it becomes a big hit as alternative theater. However the Catholic priest isn't happy with all the changes. Then parts of Jesus' life start happening in the real world. When he is injured at a performance, Daniel can't get a room at the Catholic hospital.Writer/director Denys Arcand made something that transcended simple entertainment. It is unlike anything else. It is blasphemous. And it is compelling. It's ending is tragic and uplifting at the same time. It was nominated for a foreign language Oscar losing out to the also excellent 'Cinema Paradiso'.

A young actor is commissioned to update an annual Montreal Passion Play (starring himself) but is a little too convincing in his role, drawing unfriendly criticism from the Catholic Church and finally suffering his own crucifixion (and state-of-the-art resurrection). Director Denys Arcand wants to demystify the Gospels (the performance of the Play itself might have been called 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Jesus But Were Afraid To Ask'), but his film works better as a media satire than as a modern-day theology lesson. Lothaire Bluteau's (rarely changing) hang-dog beatific calm makes the title character more of a martyr than Christ ever was (his death throes in the Montreal subway are interminable), although it's never clear if the mysterious actor simply identifies with his role or is in fact the actual Man from Galilee. But even at its most pretentious the film is engagingly playful; Arcand may be wearing his intellect on his sleeve, but his Messiah isn't too far removed from Jeffrey Hunter in 'King of Kings'.

Contrary to what others see on its surface, this film is the Passion story--not a statement about theater or art. This film tells the story of Jesus the man; allowing him to live in history without the burden of deification. It is a remarkable film that complements other modern films about Jesus--and it's nearly as controversial as Scorsese's "Last Temptation of Christ." The script and editing masterfully interweave the story of Jesus with that of our protagonist, Daniel Coloumbe. It makes a powerful statement about what the Church has done to what we know of Jesus today. The cowardice of the priest in the film is an allegory for the intentional self-blinding of the Church itself when it comes to the topic of the deification of Jesus. Emotionally paralyzed with fear of leaving the church and striking out on his own, he would rather strangle his own needs and wants in order to carry on with living a lie.For non-Christians and Christians alike, if you watch this film with an open mind it will leave you inspired. It makes the point that it doesn't matter whether Jesus was the Son of God or the Son of Man--teacher or God. If you can get beyond the the millenia of rhetoric, his message is one that is still powerful today.