Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “The Apparition” Will Disappear As All Dreary Films Do

[yasr_overall_rating]
 

A journalist is sent by the Vatican to investigate a young girl claiming to be visited by the Virgin Mary.

“The Apparition” is a French film following the journey of a young novitiate who claimed to be visited not once, but twice by the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. Written by Jacques Fieschi and directed by Xavier Giannoli, the film is entirely in French with subtitles in English, do not let this stop you from watching the movie if you find the supernatural aspect of the Catholic Church interesting, other aspects mar the presentation but not the subtitles. The beautiful language does justice to the somber film and sanctioned tone, which is as quiet as a nun in the sanctuary.

The Vatican sends Journalist Jacques (Vincent Lindon) to investigate the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a young French novitiate Anna (Galatea Bellugi). Like with Fatima, pilgrims flock in droves to the site of the apparition to pay homage and for an opportunity to pray near Anna, the teenager privileged by the Holy Mother for a special appearance. The Vatican does not automatically assume the girl’s story to be true, even the priest who Anna first confides in after her first apparition tells her the claim is blasphemy until she devotes her life to God as a nun in training.

Unbeliever Jacques trails the crowd in the newly overpopulated town and church to understand Anna and decides if her account is real. The demeanor displays his distrust for the supernatural claims of the Catholic faith. He seeks to keep his lack of faith by proving the story a scam as the church had so often claimed before. His search for truth takes him to the foster home where Anna grew up and to many of her foster home friends. He walks the trail where Anna claims to have seen the Virgin Mary and sees the first mark of the town’s vanity: a state of Mary where Anna saw the apparition. Beyond the statue, the town launches an entire Anna campaign, opening stores to sell statues, books, and photos of Anna, despite the ongoing investigation.

Anna spends her free time off the pulpit, praying and crying, she gave up life as a normal child a long time ago. She seeks Jacques, determined to convince him her story is the truth. Along with the apparition, Anna receives a bloody cloth from the Virgin, one the Vatican wants to examine for authenticity. Anna fights hard for the cloth to remain at the church. When the bloody fabric leaves, Anna stops eating to the point of illness. Throughout the movie, she periodically visits a boy in the mall, an associate from her life as a foster child. She receives letters and pictures from the same person who piqued Jacques during one of the many side roads of his investigation. Jacques follows the clues to a girl, Mériem (Alicia Hava), another child from Anna’s past and a monastery far away from where the story ends, lost in translation from French to English.

If the story had been easier to follow, not so slow, not determined to show pictures of the almost-saint Anna stuffing feathers and cotton into mattresses, or reverently holding blue rosary beads, then the story could have unfolded more naturally with a recognizable ending. The focus was on the reverence and holiness of a human and failed to convey the story. No reason existed to add so many picturesque moments, carrying the film just over two hours long. My eyes grew tired, not just from the dreary undertones and left-out details but the sheer length, dragging out long past its welcome. The story had my attention with the many people to investigate who appeared pious but, of course, were not. However, the film failed to create an engaging or believable story as the plot was lost to cryptic clues ill-explained. The hope was to shed light on the apparitions that flood into the Vatican, finding truth in some but not in all, hoping even the non-believers can find faith in someone else’s visions. If the producers cut forty minutes off and offered concrete information, instead of focusing on melancholic images or forcing faith, this movie would have been more enjoyable.

In theaters Friday, September 28th

 

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