Fatima movie review (2021) | Little White Lies

Fati­ma

24 Jun 2021 / Released: 25 Jun 2021

3

Anticipation.

Faith-based films haven’t had a great run recently (ever?).

2

Enjoyment.

Difficult to remain engaged, despite a talented cast.

2

In Retrospect.

This isn’t a bad film. Just an overly sincere one with questionable tonal shifts that may undermine its intent to be accessible.

Mar­co Pontecorvo’s reli­gious dra­ma about an appari­tion of the Vir­gin Mary is unlike­ly to con­vert non-believers.

In the US, there’s a big mar­ket for faith-based film­mak­ing, with low-rent titles such as God’s Not Dead and Sav­ing Christ­mas pan­der­ing to the beliefs of answer-hun­gry con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians. Mar­co Pontecorvo’s Fati­ma is a film which looks at faith through the lens of our con­nec­tion to and def­i­n­i­tion of God, and instead of sell­ing some­thing to the audi­ence, it offers a more objec­tive explo­ration into the cul­ture of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, albeit one that has its own problems.

It’s 1917, and in the small town of Fati­ma, Por­tu­gal, three young chil­dren report appari­tions of the Vir­gin Mary and find their lives and town for­ev­er changed as they stand in their con­vic­tion despite pres­sure to deny their encounter. Ten-year-old Lucia (Stephanie Gil) expe­ri­ences the visions most direct­ly, deliv­er­ing the Virgin’s mes­sage of peace and call to atone.

Despite the dis­be­lief of her moth­er (Lúcia Moniz), the children’s insis­tence on the events cause word of the prophe­cy to spread, and those inspired by the sight­ing flock to Lucia. How­ev­er, giv­en the tense rela­tion­ship between church and state, it’s not long before Lucia and her fam­i­ly begin to suf­fer consequences.

Fati­ma suc­ceeds most with its world-build­ing. Open­ing scenes of women and chil­dren gath­ered in the town square to hear the names of the war dead announced each day set the air of hope­less­ness that under­scores the reac­tions to Lucia’s visions. Strong, emo­tive per­for­mances from the cast anchor the world the audi­ence is sub­merged in, which works to the film’s advan­tage as at times it can be dif­fi­cult to remain engaged.

Pon­tecor­vo, who also wrote the screen­play, seems aware of this chal­lenge and the events in 1917 are couched with­in a sep­a­rate time­line in 1989 that grounds the nar­ra­tive at use­ful inter­vals. Pro­fes­sor Nichols (Har­vey Kei­t­el), who is writ­ing a book, vis­its the old­er Lucia (Sônia Bra­ga), now liv­ing as a nun. It’s estab­lished that the two share dif­fer­ent views, with Nichols serv­ing as an entry point for both non-believ­ers and those unfa­mil­iar with faith-based films. Each inter­val pro­vides a use­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to refo­cus, analyse and engage with the wider ques­tions around the cost of faith.

Where the film squan­ders good­will, how­ev­er, is in reflect­ing the more seri­ous ele­ments of its repen­tance mes­sage. If and when a faith-based film comes to the fire and brim­stone’ warn­ing, it can be under­stand­ably uncom­fort­able. Yet what’s tru­ly unset­tling is how in these fleet­ing moments the pro­duc­tion val­ue sud­den­ly plum­mets. Flash­es of destruc­tion and vio­lence look ama­teur and spliced in from anoth­er film. This under­mines the adept qual­i­ty of scenery and care­ful­ly con­sid­ered cam­era work dis­played earlier.

Over­all, Fati­ma suc­ceeds in pro­vid­ing a mes­sage that feels sin­cere, and as the cred­its roll, reveal­ing the fates and lat­er impact of the chil­dren, it’s a poignant moment. The struc­tur­ing of the film does its best to make the sto­ry acces­si­ble, but it’s still dif­fi­cult to imag­ine being ful­ly cap­ti­vat­ed with­out a vest­ed inter­est in the sub­ject mat­ter. An endeav­our made all the more improb­a­ble with incon­sis­tent lev­els of qual­i­ty that would bemuse any view­er, irre­spec­tive of topic.

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