Rating: 3.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2022 | 23/52 | Richard Linklater’s Top 10
God chose the foolish things of this world to humiliate the learned, the weak to humiliate the strong. — St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians I
So Francis, to vanquish the world, made himself contemptible and humble. He became a child in order to be worthy of the kingdom of heaven. The world laughed at him and called him mad, but Pope Innocent had faith in him and gave him permission to bring among men his faith in meekness and poverty.
St. Francis and his monks bear a downpour of rain as they make their way to Rivotorto. They stop and debate how the creatures of the earth may gain peace. They come to their hut and find it occupied. The man inside accuses the monks of being thieves and forces them out. This anger and revulsion, and how God has thrown them aside to comfort another, is the sign they need to follow St. Francis.
We follow St. Francis and his monks through nine chapters of his life in which we see his philosophy play out in incidental moments.
Rossellini, who had achieved admiration for his neorealist films, excited some audiences and confounded others with his Catholic ode to St. Francis. After WWII and a crisis of faith, Rosselini found something naïve but admirable in the teachings of St. Francis. He believed it was what would save Europe.
The film isn’t a biography — we learn almost nothing about St. Francis. It isn’t a story — nothing much happens in each episode. In an effort against capital-H History, we receive small, incomplete moments. They suggest an allegory, but move on before we can summarize them. The blocking and framing aim toward a one-dimensionality, like pre-Renaissance paintings.
And so what do we have? We have sketches of the banal: a realism more real than the political or historical can convey.
In my youth, when I was a devout Christian, St. Francis occupied a significant place in my life, even if I didn’t know it. His self-effacing humility, and his emulation of Paul’s decree to be all things to all people, sustained a deep self-hatred within me. I was born nothing. I am nothing. Let God be everything I am not. The resulting emotional suffering did more damage than faith could salvage.
The Seventh Seal drew everything beautiful from this movie and gave it spiritual and psychological significance. Andrei Rublev converted the flat imagery into otherworldly poetry. I’m curious to see how this film informed The Gospel According to St. Matthew when I get around to it.
Aesthetically, this movie is beautiful in its simplicity. Though I disagree with its core messages, I don’t think that belief is necessary to appreciate the film. But it’s a hard film for me to love.