Mark Reviews Movies: FATIMA (2020)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 27, 2020

Movies about faith need some actual faith in them. Religious belief isn't entirely about certainty, and indeed, blind certainty in religion does not often have positive results (For examples, just look at the course of history or, for that matter, the blending of the religious and the political today). Doubt is as necessary as belief, because, if not for being uncertain about the truth of assorted religious tenets, of what value, really, is faith? Many call these doctrines and dogmas and tales of divine presence or intervention in the world mysteries. Stories about religion might be better served embracing the mysterious, instead of just simply accepting matters of faith as the unquestioning and unquestionable truth.

That brings us to Fatima, a dramatization of the alleged—and officially recognized by the Catholic Church—visitations of the Virgin Mary to three children in Fátima, Portugal. The movie, co-written and directed by Marco Pontecorvo, presents these visitations faithfully—at least in terms of the accounts of the eldest of the children, who would later become a nun and live until the age of 97 in 2005 (The other two, her cousins, died young of the 1918 global influenza epidemic and have since been canonized as saints, which means the eldest will likely become one soon). As for the movie being faithful in terms of belief overcoming uncertainty, it most certainly doesn't leave any room for doubt.

The screenplay by Pontecorvo, Valerio D'Annunzio, and Barbara Nicolosi certainly pays lip service to doubt, mainly in the personages of certain townsfolk, who have personal or political reasons to be skeptical of the children's claim, and, in a framing device set in the 1980s, an author who is studying and debunking religious visions. The presentation of these characters as openly antagonistic to the seers' claims says everything one needs to know about the movie's approach to its central miracle.

They are not simply doubters or people who see earthly reason above matters of religious conviction. Because the visions are presented as the whole and undeniable truth, these people are simply wrong, and any questions or concerns that they might have about the visions and their implications for these children are just wrongheaded. If they only had faith, they could see the truth. The movie's only argument for that faith, in that old trick of begging the question, is that everything that happened in regards to the spiritual visions was the truth.

In 1917, with the Great War unfolding away from Portugal but with young men from the country fighting in that conflict, 10-year-old Lúcia and her family are awaiting news of an older brother currently in combat. In a cave, she sees an angel, who grants her a vision of the war and her brother's uncertain fate (The effect, achieved essentially by projecting a movie on the cave walls, is simple but striking).

Part of a family of farmers and shepherds, the girl, joined by her cousins Jacinta (Alejandra Howard) and Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) is later in the family field, tending to sheep, when a woman (played by Joana Ribeiro) dressed in white appears before them. She claims to be the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.

While the two girls can see and hear her, they have to tell Francisco, who cannot hear the woman's words, her wish: The three children should return to this spot every month for six months, and at the end of that period, they will witness a miracle. Word quickly spreads around town and throughout the country, leading to monthly pilgrimages and daily skepticism.

From the start, there's no doubt that Lúcia and her cousin's visions are truthful. We see what they see, and Pontecorvo stages these visions in such a way that their authenticity cannot be questioned. Others, who cannot see or hear the woman, do question it, of course.

Lúcia's mother Maria Rosa (Lúcia Moniz) suspects her daughter simply desires attention, and Artur (Goran Visnjic), the town mayor who is a strict secularist in a country that recently overthrew a monarchy to form a republic, sees a potential threat to his position, should word spread too far. Even the local priest (played by Joaquim de Almeida) takes some convincing. In the latter-day scenes, an older Lúcia (played by Sonia Braga) debates her testimony with Professor Nichols (Harvey Keitel), who believes her visions can be explained by psychology.

Importantly, the question of the visions' authenticity isn't the movie's point. As a result, the questioning of the doubters and skeptics are merely obstacles to overcome, not legitimate thoughts about the possibility that the children are mistaken or wrong (Since the filmmakers are following the "official" story, such a possibility would be unthinkable) and, when there is a miracle upon the final visitation, about a scientific explanation for an apparent celestial phenomenon (The famous "secrets" of the future, by the way, are brushed over in this version of the tale).

Fatima has its story to tell, though. While it tells that tale with conviction and respect, the movie ultimately feels like a story of accepted and acceptable belief, not of genuine faith.

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