A group of actors putting on an interpretive Passion Play in Montreal begin to experience a meshing of their characters and their private lives as the production takes form against the growing opposition of the Catholic church.
Alex has a deeply troubled mind. He also has a seriously dysfunctional - not to say incestuous - family. Why then, has he returned from his merchant seaman job to the rocky coasts of his home? Perhaps he couldn't cut manage to march in his father's footsteps in that job. His mother doesn't seem to mind, and lets him stay at her bed and breakfast hotel. His sister still seems to have the hots for him, just as she does for his (and her) old boyfriend Jean-Louis, who has just shown up. Even his mother seems to find him sexy. All these people appear eager to get their hands on his body, but he's too wrapped up in what's going on inside his head to notice.
Juan Alvarez, a Spanish refugee in Canada, shoemaker, picks up at his home Manuel, a 12-year-old Portuguese teenager, whom he teaches to read, to assert his rights and who speaks of the Spanish civil war.
