The Story of the Passion
 The Passion of the Christ is a film about the last twelve hours of Jesus of Nazareth's life. The film opens in the Garden of Olives (Gethsemane) where Jesus has gone to pray after the Last Supper. Jesus resists Satan's temptations. Betrayed by Judas Iscariot, Jesus is arrested and taken back to within the city walls of Jerusalem where the leaders of the Pharisees confront him with accusations of blasphemy and his trial results in a condemnation to death.
Jesus is brought before Pilate, the Roman Governor of Palestine, who listens to the accusations leveled at him by the Pharisees. Realizing he is confronting a politicial conflict, Pilate defers to King Herod in the matter. Herod returns Jesus to Pilate who gives the crowd a choice between Jesus and the criminal Barrabas. The crowd chooses to have Barabbas set free and to condemn Jesus.
Jesus is handed over to the Roman soldiers and flagellated. Unrecognizable now, he is brought back before Pilate, who presents him to the crowd as if to say "is this not enough?" It is not. Pilates washes his hands of the entire dilemma, ordering his men to do as the crowd wishes.
Jesus is presented with the cross and is ordered to carry it through the streets of Jerusalem all the way up to Golgotha. On Golgotha, Jesus is nailed to the cross and undergoes his last temptation - the fear that he has been abandoned by his Father. He overcomes his fear, looks at Mary, his Holy Mother, and makes the pronouncement which only she can fully understand, "it is accomplished." He then dies: "into Thy hands I commend my Spirit."
At the moment of his death, nature itself overturns.
Mel Gibson's Production of the Passion
 Mel Gibson produced this film in Sassi of Matera, as Pasolini did in 1964 with his Gospel According to St. Matthew. Even Richard Gere did his David here in 1985. It focuses on the 12 hours of Jesus' life leading to his crucifixion. Jesus speaks Latin and Aramaic without the aid of subtitles.
"Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two dead languages," Mel Gibson explained at a news conference Friday in the Sala Fellini at Cinecitta. "They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius.
"I want to show the film without subtitles," he added. "Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend language barriers with visual storytelling. If I fail, I'll put subtitles on it, though I don't want to."
"The idea came to me 10 years ago and has been rambling around in my empty head, very slowly taking shape ever since," Gibson said. "I think this is a pretty timeless and timely story to tell, involving an area where there's turbulence now just as there was turbulence then because history repeats itself.
"I want to show the humanity of Christ as well as the divine aspect," he continued. "It's a rendering that for me is very realistic and as close as possible to what I perceive the truth to be."
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Have you seen The Passion of the Christ? 
