Aramaic For Beginners

They say that only saints and lunatics can know the mind of God and, attempting to tell the story of Jesus in his next project, Mel Gibson looks to be leaning dangerously close to the latter category. Declaring his intentions to pick up where he left off with the Oscar-winning Braveheart, Gibson has said that he will go back behind the camera for The Passion, a story about the last 12 hours of Jesus' life. Oh, and he wants to do the entire film in two languages that haven't been in common usage for almost two millennia. Without subtitles. Try, for a moment, to get a handle on the potential excitement of wading through a (sure to be extraordinarily long) film about the death of the bearded, holy one while having almost no idea what anyone is actually saying. Daunting isn't it? Those of you who have the knack for jive-talking in classical Latin or ancient Aramaic will be sorted, but, for the rest of us, the whole experience will likely be something akin to watching foreign cable TV in the wee hours. Only without the sex. "Obviously, nobody wants to touch something filmed in two dead languages," Gibson illuminated. "They think I'm crazy, and maybe I am. But maybe I'm a genius. I want to show the film without subtitles. Hopefully, I'll be able to transcend language barriers with visual storytelling." Jim Caviezel - like Gibson, a devout catholic - will give off the divine aura as JC himself during the time leading up to his execution - as theologians out there will know, the accounts of these events in the gospels are known as the 'passion narratives', hence the film's title. "I want to show the humanity of Christ as well as the divine aspect," Gibson explained. "It's a rendering that for me is very realistic and as close as possible to what I perceive the truth to be." For those of you still scratching your heads as to what Aramaic actually is (it was Jesus' native tongue), try not to give yourself a headache as Gibson has already conceded that, if there's enough pressure, he will be forced to give those of us who aren't exactly au fait with the BC vernacular, a little helping hand. "If I fail, I'll put subtitles on it, though I don't want to."