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That's one reason (among a couple) I'll be seeing the film again during Holy Week.

Unlike many, I don't have a problem with the demonic's "bleeding through" the plane of reality in the film. It seems to me that -- particularly given Satan's anguished cry and angry shrieking at what seems an empty, after all, representation of the same circle of Golgotha in hell -- it's possible Satan and the other evil spirits who prey on men had their faces fixed for triumph when the stupid Christ chose to sacrifice himself.

I see no reason they wouldn't have converged and, in some respects, overstepped their bounds somewhat with the hubris of what seemed to them certain victory.

So ... on that strictly personal interpretation, I see the raven's beginning to feast upon Gesmas as the natural complement to Dismas's choosing Christ. The black raven is merely claiming his own.

But more important than any personal spin one might attach to the moment, I liked the scene as a reminder of the torments being crucified entailed.

I sat for a couple hours -- sweaty, tired, in pain -- at a little podunk bus stop in Palencia last September while walking the Camino in Spain. As they had ALL DAY, the flies kept crawling on my face ... it was like a scene from "Once upon a Time in the West"

And it was there, finally, after throwing fits for last 40 kilometres over the unpleasantness of moscas ... that I decided to turn the experience into yet another meditation on the Passion. Perhaps no one's eyes were gouged out or their bodies pecked (as did happen, no doubt) the afternoon Christ hung on the cross. But I'm pretty sure that blood attracted flies which no man hanging on a cross was able to swat away.

Lots of attention given to the "overly violent" scourging scene. By the time you get to the cross, most are more interested in arguing over whether the nails were placed in the hands or wrists.

But -- though I did think it a bit of apt symbolic symmetry as both thieves made their choices -- I think perhaps our wondering at the "symbolism" of an act which most certainly was a matter-of-course event for any man hanging for a day or more on the cross is maybe misplaced.

Not all birds circle in wait until the animal has become carrion.