Gethsemane lies in the narrow ground between the Kidron valley and the lower slope of the Mount of Olives, facing the eastern wall of the Old City. The garden's olive trees, gnarled and hollowed by age, are among the most photographed living things in the Holy Land, and they give the site its immediate power: a place that is still, physically, a grove. Adjoining it stands the Church of All Nations, also called the Basilica of the Agony, whose mosaic façade faces the city and whose interior was conceived by the architect Antonio Barluzzi as a deliberate night — violet glass, low light, a starred vault — enclosing the outcrop of bedrock venerated as the place where Jesus prayed before his arrest. The contrast between the bright garden and the dark nave is one of the most effective architectural sequences in Jerusalem. Around the basilica, other communities keep their own sanctuaries on the slope. The film follows the site through the pilgrimage day and into the evening, when the walls opposite are lit and the olives fall into silhouette.
