Fatima

1917, Portugal. The country is at war and the government is anticlerical. Near Fátima, ten year old Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta say they have seen a figure: a woman above an oak tree. It begins on 13 May and is repeated six times. The town divides; the church is sceptical, the government is angry and the families are frightened. The narrative is framed by an interview in 1989 in which the elderly Lúcia recounts it to a sceptical professor. Marco Pontecorvo directs. Sônia Braga plays the elderly Lúcia, Harvey Keitel the professor and Stephanie Gil the child. The cast includes Joaquim de Almeida, Goran Višnjić, Lúcia Moniz, and Joana Ribeiro as the Virgin. The frame sets up an argument: a believer and an unbeliever face each other and the narrative gives both a hearing. Its most concrete element is what is done to the children. The mayor detains them, threatens them and demands a confession; the pressure of the state is the hardest part of the film. It belongs openly to faith cinema and presents the apparitions as real, while also showing the church's first reaction as hostile. It carries an original song, Gratia Plena, sung by Andrea Bocelli and composed by Paolo Buonvino. Who it is for: viewers who like religious period film and narratives of belief. Who it is not for: the film leaves no room for an unbelieving audience, the characters other than the children are thin, and the narrative is predictable.