A short while after watching The Passion of the Christ for the first time, I was asked what, if anything, I had disliked about the film. The music, I answered.

Not that the score wasn't good. In fact, I explained, I found it quite evocative of time, place and atmosphere. It's just that, every time it asserted itself, I remembered I was watching actors in a drama.

The convention of using a score at all, I maintained, breaks the spell created by this movie's unconventional hyper-realism. Mel Gibson's cinematic technique puts you in first-century Palestine so successfully you practically choke on the grit of the streets. In fact, some of the imagery is so potent that I'd like to see the whole thing without any musical embellishments at all. Experience it like raw footage. At least once, anyway. I hope the DVD offers that option.

Think again, said my interlocutor. Sure, some of the most mesmerizing scenes come when the music cuts out entirely. But that's only because the score is so effective in setting up the spaces in which everything but the action goes stonily silent.

About halfway into the movie for the second time, listening closely and consciously watching for the effect, I conceded the point.

But losing the argument didn't settle the issue. In fact, to my mind, it only raised another question. Is it the presence of “movie music” in general that helps make the motion-picture meditation that is The Passion of the Christ so deeply affecting? Or is there something about this particular movie music?

Only one way to find out for sure. Go out and get the soundtrack CD. See how well it stands on its own, with no astonishing imagery to sell the accompanying sounds to the ear.

Having since completed that assignment, I not only have an answer but can also pinpoint the moment it came to me.

Two weeks ago, I'm driving home. It's late. Clear night. Pitch-black patch of highway. I've played the CD through a couple of times prior, but this time I turn up the volume near maximum so as not to miss a trick. Minutes after midnight, the third track, “Jesus Arrested,” slithers in. In the distance, aggressive, primal drums. Throaty Middle Eastern woodwinds. Distorted, haunted male vocals. Each of these elements advances and recedes but never comes all the way to the fore. The voice: Is it praying, pleading or sobbing? Whatever it's doing, it sounds desperate.

Three or so minutes into this eerie aural atmosphere, a second vocal manifestation emerges. It's low and guttural, and it's neither human nor animal. Is it mirthful or mournful? In pain or pleasure? It's hard to say because it never steps out of the shadows created by the ambient noise to fully reveal itself. It moans just loudly enough to be heard, but it's too veiled and too garbled to communicate any specific idea or emotion.

Behind this, or maybe beneath it, the primal drums begin to build again. A swarm of shrieking catcalls — or are they inconsolable wails? — descends. These don't make it to the front, either; they only provide cover for the demon murmur, which slips away unnoticed while the percussion pounds. The overall effect is of tossing through a fever dream.

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK

COM P OSE D BY John Debney

Sony Music, $18.98 (list)

Available wherever music CDs are sold

Now get this. Just after that unnerving track ended, a shooting star fell from the sky directly ahead. It was so bright, clear and fast I caught my breath — thinking, for one millisecond, that something was about to crash through my wind-shield. I'm not easily spooked by things that go “odd” in the night, but right then and there, on Interstate 95, I got a case of what our evangelical-Protestant brothers and sisters call “Godbumps.” And you can bet I listened, and watched, very attentively the rest of the way through the disk. Didn't touch the controls, either.

Here's what I decided before I reached home that night and confirmed in several subsequent follow-up listenings: John Debney's score is as impressive a musical achievement as Gibson's moving pictures are a cinematographic triumph.

Perhaps this should not surprise. Debney, a Catholic who till now was best known for his work on such forgettable film fare as Snow Dogs, The Scorpion King and Elf, has said repeatedly that he was profoundly changed by his Passion experience. “I had never before subscribed to the idea that maybe Satan is a real person,” he told WorldNet Daily, “but I can attest that he was in my room a lot and I know that he hit everyone on this production. … I was tested. I once said to Mel, ‘With every lash that Christ felt, I was feeling those lashes in my own way.’ I was sorely tested.”

Ethereal and Elusive

I trust it goes without saying that this is not a recording you'd play for light entertainment. It's ethereal and elusive, and it's not even a set of songs per se: You'd have to call it an extended, 55-minute soundscape. But, taken on its own terms, it works. It chills without veering anywhere near horror-movie schtick and conveys wrenching sorrow without so much as a nod to the sanctimonious strings that swell so predictably in too many a tear-jerker.

Debney's genius is in mixing a relatively small palette of colors into epoch-crossing combinations so they evoke varying moods, rhythms and textures. Ancient flutes and stringed instruments (ever heard of a duduk, erhu or oud before?) mingle with solo vocals and choirs (lyrics in Aramaic); frequent primitive percussion is offset by occasional orchestral flourishes; piercing, wordless vocal calls trade off with bold brass cues.

Two movements emerge as the most memorable. One is a doleful vocal theme introduced in the track titled “Mary Goes to Jesus.” The female voice is thin, high and forlorn, yet it provides a welcome breath of warmth and melody. Debney recalls it in “Crucifixion” and at three or four other points to beautiful effect. The other showstopper is a militaristic marching motif — the glorious “Resurrection,” which closes the CD, quite literally, on a triumphant note. Here big, warlike drums mount to a deafening roar before they're joined by a towering chorus and a dramatic horn-and-string address. In two minutes you're roused from heartbreaking lament to glorious hope with such conviction that you might want to pump your fist overhead.

Don't. Not yet, anyway. The encore, if you will, is a final return of the dulcet Marian theme. The solo vocal's curtain call struck me as a sweet and subtle reminder: I'd been seeing — make that hearing — Christ's passion through the immaculate heart of his Mother all along.

If you're thinking of buying this CD, I can give you three reasons over and above its unqualified artistic success to plunk down the $15 or so it'll cost you. One, it can provide a powerful aid to contemplating Jesus Christ's passion or praying the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary (especially at night with a blessed candle burning in front of a Marian statue or painting). Two, the sale would fire one more shot of sense in Hollywood's general direction. You already know how big the movie is and how it's made even the most jaded entertainment moguls sit up and take notice of the demand for serious and reverent faith-based fare. But did you know this soundtrack has been parked in the Billboard Top 25 for three weeks running? Imagine the attitudes that would have to adjust if it cracked the Top 10, displacing a debauched pop diva or crude hip-hopper in the process.

And three: Yes it's “movie music,” but there's something unexpectedly affecting about this unconventional score. One good listen and you might never hear the sounds of sorrow — or silence — the same way again.

David Pearson is the Register's features editor.