Fatima

Fatima
Starring Stephanie Gil, Alejandra Howard, Jorge Lamelas, Lucia Moniz
Directed by Marco Pontecorvo

For centuries people have claimed to see the apparition of the Virgin Mary in everything - from clouds to specters, and even toast.  Yet the most famous - and well recounted - vision came from the small city of Fatima, Portugal, in the early 1900s, when the Virgin Mary was said to appear to three children, urging them to continually pray, use their rosary, and hopefully bring about the end to the war.  As with most miracles, this was met with equal skepticism and optimism, depending on your belief, culminating in one final visual miracle that 70,000 people witnessed.

Young Lucia dos Santos (Stephanie Gil) is out in the field tending to her parents' sheep when she's visited by a beautiful woman in white (Joana Ribeiro), urging her to pray.  Lucia is soon joined by her younger cousins Jacinta (Alejandra Howard) and Francisco (Jorge Lamelas), who both also witness the apparition, with Jacinta telling the community of Fatima what they saw.  Lucia's mother Maria (Lucia Moniz) is a strictly devout woman who thinks Lucia either saw a demon or is faking it, and doesn't appreciate all the attention that her community is giving her daughter.

As the Virgin Mary continues to appear to the children, they draw in huge crowds of people who wish to see her for themselves, and for their own miracles to be answered.  On the other side, the local town mayor (Goran Visnjic) and the church elders persecute the children, demanding that they recount their story and say it's all false due to a tumultuous upcoming election.  Lucia and her cousins soon find themselves having to stand up for what they saw not just against the government, but from their own families and friends as well, as it seems that other peoples' miracles aren't being answered.

I remember hearing about the story of Fatima years ago, and was always fascinated with it, mostly due to how humanistic it was.  There wasn't any whims of fancy, any earth-shattering miraculous signs (except for the well-known Miracle of the Sun), and no search for fame or fortune, but in reality it seemed like something that logically - in the eyes of the religious - could easily happen.  Matthew 19:14 reads: "But Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.'"  Throughout the film people ask the little children why the Virgin Mary would appear to them of all people, and don't understand the very answer is in the book they claim to follow: children are more susceptible to the miraculous and spiritual because their hearts haven't been hardened yet due to the pains of the world. 

"Fatima" doesn't really extend the needle to either terrible territory nor superior territory, but mainly exists in the most simplistic form.  It's not a film you'll vividly remember years from now, but it's still a very timeless tale that needs to be told, especially in this darker times.  The most interesting part to me occurs when Lucia and her cousins reveal that they met with the Virgin Mary, and seeing the countless multitudes of people who flock to them in desperation and despair - something that people still do today.  The world is always filled with hopelessness and doubt, and we'll cling to anything even closely resembling salvation.  Uniformly, there'll always be people who doubt and don't believe in the miraculous, even if its staring them right in the face, and will stop at nothing to make sure such flights of fancy never fully take off.  "Fatima" showcases both these views well, but more importantly give deeper character development than that.

Stephanie Gil shines as young Lucia, a ten-year-old wise beyond her years, and a girl who held fast to her convictions while everyone around her failed to believe - including her own family.  Not is it a feat for an actress to convey this, but knowing that the real-life Lucia went through all this terror at such a young age - and continued to hold fast to her resolve - is something amazing, and Gil gives a commanding performance. 

Yet it's not just her, but those around her who give well thought-out performances, rather than just caricatures you'd come to expect.  Goran Visnjic plays the Mayor, who could've been a simple cartoonish villain who doesn't have any other agenda than combating the children, but he's a more well-rounded character, a man who is still searching for something despite believing in nothing.  Lucia Moniz plays Lucia's mother Maria, who also could've been easily classified as a villain, a woman who shuns her daughter for her believes and chides her for not praying hard enough for her brother who's away at war.  While she's frustratingly naive through most of it, there's also a deeper characterization to her: a woman who's pained by the possible loss of her only son at war, and who must endure the constant taunts, threats, and snide comments by her friends about her daughter's visions, which leads to to be a surprisingly sympathetic character.

Taking on the "less is more" belief, director Marco Pontecorvo decided to go with the more simplistic, natural effects than heavy-laden CGI effects when it comes to not just the appearances of the Virgin Mary (who arrives simply barefoot dressed in white with no spectacular sounds or sights) but also the money shot of the film: the famed Miracle of the Sun, which was shot in such a way that it seemed like you were witnessing the miracle yourself (the only negative part was then the Virgin Mary showed the young children a vision of hell, which detracted from the overall feel of the film and felt cheap).  That, mixed with the believable, commanding performances, lead to a very well-done faith film rooted in sheer humanity.

Mixing the faith with the humanity, "Fatima" is a well-developed faith film centering on one of the most famous visions of the Virgin Mary in history, led by a capable cast and natural use of the elements.

The Score: A