Picturehouse
In 1917, a little under two years from the end of World War I, an incident of religious relevance occurred in a small town in Portugal called Fátima. A young girl named Lúcia believed she saw a vision of an angel, and then, while with her two younger cousins (Jacinta and Francisco) later, also a vision of the Virgin Mary, who spoke to her and gave instructions. Francisco could not hear the words, he said, but Jacinta believed or said that she could hear the vision also.
The movie Fatima comes from director Marco Pontecorvo, mainly known as a cinematographer for TV series like Rome and Game of Thrones, with a script he co-wrote. Here Lúcia is played by Stephanie Gil, and the story follows the real life historical events somewhat closely. During this era in Portugal, there was a strong anticlerical sentiment from the government, so there is a single true skeptic, the mayor of the town, Arturo (Goran Višnjić).
Arturo believes that the children are lying or confused, and thinks it is better to be secular and move away from irrationality and superstition — he even argues with his wife, who is a believer. But the movie shows everything that the children reported that they saw, and we hear the various apparitions speak. So the movie is weighing very heavily towards ‘this is what happened’ instead of leaving it up for the audience to decide.
There is a bit of a framing device where a professor of something played by Harvey Keitel is interviewing an older Lúcia, who eventually entered religious service. The professor makes his potential points, but they almost feel thrown in just to be able to say ‘No, it’s not simply a religious propaganda piece’. But it is, despite all that. The end credits make it quite clear on the part of the filmmakers that they think that the Catholic Church affirming the whole situation as a true miracle or worthy of belief to be a good thing.
The movie is a bit dull much of the time, with attempts at coloring the situation around each documented situation more drawn out. There are attempts at some moral uncertainty, with deaths of people or destruction of the family’s crops by practitioners wanting to see the vision. But the movie is clearly concerned with being an affirmation of faith, not anything else.
The film is presented in fairly muted colors, more brown and grey than I expected from a former DOP, but perhaps that’s an aspect to the world during the war. It’s mostly just not the most interesting visually, but there are few points where the movie has some cool visuals. Stephanie Gil, who previously was in Terminator: Dark Fate, is pretty good here — you need someone capable of pulling off this sort of complete self-confidence without seeming over the top, and she certainly does that.
The other kids are okay, but more childish and less interesting as characters anyway. It’s a majority Portugese/Brazilian cast, with the odd note of Goran Višnjić, who is Croatian. But I suppose that’s not really more than a quibble anyway. It feels safe to say that there will be those of the religious bent that will find this movie meaningful and important, but any non-Catholic active believers may find the propagandist bent to be too much to overcome.
If you can simply accept that the movie is just that, religious propaganda, it’s well made enough, even if it is dull at parts. I’m sure some people will love it.
Fatima has a run time of 1 hour 53 minutes and is rated PG-13 for some strong violence and disturbing images.
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