It was both. There are flashback scenes depicting the Last Supper and the Sermon on the Mount.
It a very moving picture, that gives a complete picture of Christ's last 12 hours.
Yes it is graphic, but that is the way it was, and the movie doesn't hold back on the brutality Jesus suffered.
I know that it was likely the way it was. However, would we accept a film in which the mechanism of the birth of Christ was graphically displayed? The message of His birth is the joy that our Savior has come into the world, not the labor contractions, primitive medicine, blood, animal feces and flies in the stable, the child emerging from the birth canal, etc. I am similarly concerned that The Passion may be a little off-message for all of its realism, authenticity, etc. I'm not saying it is a bad movie - not at all. Or that its message is way off. I'm just concerned. Yet, in comparison to the rest of the filth Hollywood is spewing onto our screens and into our homes via TV, this movie is a miracle. I'm not trying to deride the film, I'm just trying to get a feeling ahead of time for the actual message of the movie.