One for the true believers
Fatima (M, 112 mins) Directed by Marco Pontecorvo Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★
The first time I went to Samoa, about 10 years ago, my co-workers and I got stuck in a motel in downtown Apia for a week, waiting for the weather to calm enough to take the ferry to Tokelau, where we were to shoot scenes for a documentary.
A couple of days into our stay, The Samoa Observer ran a story on an image of the Virgin Mary that had appeared on the side of a nearby church, and the hundreds of people who were flocking to see it.
I was intrigued enough to go to have a look. What I saw when I got there was a wall that had been stained by rusty water overflowing from a blocked guttering. And, yes, the overflow had left a mark that did look like a cowled figure. But only a person already of the faith could have believed that is what it was.
And that is the problem with religious movies. Only the people who already believe what they’re about to see is ‘‘the truth’’ ever really appreciate them.
So, all a heretic like me can tell you about Fatima, which is not the first movie I have seen about the three children who claim they were visited by Jesus’ mum several times in 1917, is that if you are of a mind to see it, then see it.
If it were up to me, I probably wouldn’t have cast the distractingly beautiful model and actress Joana Ribeiro (The Man
Who Killed Don Quixote) as Mary. And, even if I had, I still would have eased up a little on the lipgloss and eyeliner.
Also, maybe Marco Pontecorvo (on debut as a feature director, but with several Game of Thrones episodes on his CV as cinematographer) could have spent less time with his camera up a crane or in the skies above the action, and more actually conveying the human story on the ground.
But really, who cares what I think? If you are a believer, then just as with that wall in Apia, you will quite possibly see in Fatima a beauty and truth that I was blind to. And that is truly just fine.