Paradoxical Impressions.
For myself, this film wasn't amazing, or awful. It was both at the same time.
The cinematography and the soundtrack was very artist. This was something I deeply appreciated.
And the fact they used the original languages of the day, I thought was brillant, as many people rip out the context when they talk about Jesus and first century Canaan.
However they could have used actors that actually appeared to be Semitic for the main roles, and a Righteous Jewish woman of the first century, such as ‘Mary’, would not have wiped up blood as you see her do in this film.
I've read various reviews about how authentic the Aramaic is in the film. A native Aramaic speaker, Paul Younan said,
'…There were times when I understood 15 minutes of dialogue without having to look at the sub-titles…
there were other times when I was scratching my head for 20 minutes wondering where the heck they reconstructed that Aramaic from.
…Both Dr. Kiraz and I would probably understand 100% of the Aramaic in the film.....if we had the DVD and could re-wind and play it s-l-o-w-e-r…for some unknown reason, the actors spoke really, REALLY fast – and that's not how Aramaic-speakers speak the language.
We speak very s-l-o-w, with a lot of emphasis on the syllables. The Italian actors seemed to do the best with the proper pronunciation.
Some of the other actors sounded like they were speaking Klingon. '
That's my two cents.