Fatima

Greetings again from the darkness. I'm not Catholic and did not grow up learning much about Catholicism. However, I have heard the story of Fatima, Portugal and the 3 young shepherds who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary. Writer-Director Marco Pontecorvo and co-writers Valerio D'Annunzio and Barbara Nicolosi deliver a dutiful re-telling of the events that led up to the Miracle of the Sun.

The movie begins in 1989 as Professor Nicols (Harvey Keitel) visits Sister Lucia (Sonia Braga), now an octogenarian, at her nunnery. The professor is quite the skeptic, but it's crucial to his new book project that he question the Sister about what she experienced in 1917. We then flash back to that era when 10 year old Lucia (Stephanie Gil) and her cousins, 7 year old Jacinto (Alejandra Howard) and 8 year old Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) are youngsters working as shepherds for the family flock of sheep. One day, a vision appears to the three children. It's the Virgin Mary (Joana Ribeiro) offering words of hope and a request for praying and strong faith.

Of course kids are kids, so their secret gets spilled almost immediately. As you would expect, no one believes them. Not their family or those in the small Portugal village. The townspeople gather regularly in the square to hear the Mayor (Goran Visnjic) read the names of the local boys and men who have been killed in war. It's a gut-wrenching occurrence for all involved, and yet another opportunity for the mean-spirited folks to accuse the kids of lying about what they've seen. The local priest (Joaquim de Almeida) tries to frighten them out of the story, and even Lucia's mother (Lucia Moniz) scolds and belittles her.

"The faith of a child" has rarely been more evident than with young Lucia. She stays strong despite being ostracized by the villagers, the church, and even her family. The film makes clear observation about faith and religion. What is religion but believing and having faith in something intangible - something that can't be seen or touched. Director Pontecorvo delivers a faith-based film, yet one that is not preachy. It does make us wonder why the religious leaders are themselves so lacking in true faith, and why the politician is envious of the youngsters who draw an audience. Photographs of that day in 1917 ... the "Miracle of the Sun" ... are shown as part of the closing credits, while Andrea Bocelli's remarkable voice sings out. It's a low-budget film with some overacting (from adults), but the message and the performance of young Stephanie Gil make it worthwhile.

The events near Fatima in Portugal are well known historically, culminating with what has come to be called "The Miracle of the Sun", where a crowd of about 70,000 were in a heavy storm when it suddenly cleared up and the grounds dried.

This movie ends with that but actually starts in more modern times when Sister Lucia as an old woman is telling her story to a historian. Then we see the 1917 story in flashbacks. The movie is very well made with mostly veteran actors and can be enjoyed whether or not the viewer believes in the religious aspect of it.

I must comment about young actress Stephanie Gil (about 12) who is in the lead role as Lucia. She is really good and I was struck with her comments on the DVD extra, she sounds like a typical American girl, with no accent at all. In fact she is Spanish and I had to look up a video of her being interviewed in Spanish and yes, she speaks perfect Spanish too. I hope to see her in future roles, she is a talented young actress.

My wife and I watched it on DVD from the public library.

I saw the original movie "Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima" - I've read a lot about this event over the years. This new movie's cinematography was good. Some things were left out of the original story...the threat from the authorities to boil the kids in oil if they did not tell the truth, what happened to the apparition for September? (never shown in this movie). Also - the ending - the miracle of the sun was shown as just a bright shining sun giving off a few colors and did not appear "dramatic" at all. Historical documentation show that people saw the sun "dance in a zig zag" pattern and move all around while shining off a magnitude of colors over everyone and the landscape. There were also miraculous healings directly after the miracle that this movie also did not depict. For these reasons, I give the film a 5 out of 10. I enjoyed the original 1950's movie better.

Great movie and again relevant for our times. Shows us that in the face of a pandemic, strife, suffering and socialism run amok that faith can conquer all. Whether is be 1917 or 2020, Our Lady STILL cares and draws us to salvation and her Son. Well constructed with a great cast...the child actors are honestly some of the best I have ever seen. So moving and so believable. Everyone involved should be proud of this movie.

Honestly, I liked it, even though it wasn't perfect. One of the most beautiful and well-made religious films I've ever seen, mainly due to the quality of the actors, young Stephanie Gil is brilliant, and the children Alejandra Howard and Jorge Lamelas are also perfect, the adult cast also does a great job. Setting and ambience are realistic, it manages to portray place and time well, soundtrack is pleasant, direction and production have good quality, in short, a lot of good things. The only thing that slips is the script, which is confusing, it skips several moments of the real story, and anyone who doesn't know it will feel quite confused, especially in the last third, where there is an even greater void in the details of the real facts, leaving out a lot of things.

I think this is a movie where spoilers might be useful for those who don't know the real story. It's worth doing some search on the internet and reading a little about it, in order to watch the film knowing how everything happened, it's the only way to not get lost with the final part of the film and understand that a lot was excluded from the script.

Rating 7 out of 10, it could be an even higher rating if it weren't for the problem I mentioned above.