Fatima

Fatima is told simply but emotionally, prioritizing the sensorial reality of the children's world and the people inhabiting it. This devotion to the "real" makes the holy vision palpable and plausible.

Fatima largely works as a drama, in part because it's so earnestly presented, and unexpectedly timely in dealing with loss. If that adds up to something less than a miracle, given the aforementioned challenges, it's not an inconsequential achievement.

This later timeline, featuring two of the planet’s most wonderful actors, adds clout to a film that, in stark contrast to most faith-based fodder, is gorgeously shot and designed.

Fatima has excellent production design. A lot of care went into getting the period details right. There’s some beautiful cinematography and decent performances all around. It’s just all so mushy and predictable. Faith vs. science, tragedy testing one’s faith – those themes have been explored before, more enticingly. Pontecorvo turns a fascinating bit of history into a by-the-numbers affair, and that may be Fatima’s greatest sin.

Given the inherent lack of drama in the kind of unbreakable faith on display here, anyone wishing to tell the story needs to work much harder than this laboured treatment to wring any nuance, conflict or indeed true sublimity from it.

While the film may speak to viewers with a spiritual investment in these events, it does little to bring them alive for others.

I also appreciated the film’s quick glimpse of Hell itself, which Lucia is plunged into as a warning to whose who won’t accept salvation. With its cheap CGI demons and soundtrack of wailing souls, it was unintentional comedy of the highest order. If you need me, I’ll be laughing all the way to Hades.

(Mauro Lanari) The film begins with the date of 1989 and is a declaration of intent. The director does not deviate from the official interpretation of the event provided by Wojtyla on May 13, 2000, the Catholic version of Hobsbawm's "The Short Twentieth Century" (1994): the prophecies received by the 3 Portuguese shepherd children concerned the parable of Soviet communism. Today, however, geopoliticians such as Dario Fabbri and Lucio Caracciolo speak of a "long century", just as in the religious sphere it is doubted whether the prophecy of Fátima should be considered concluded: are we sure that the miracle of the sun must be associated with John Paul II through the Latin motto "De labore solis" with which he is indicated by the Prophecy of the Popes? What would the fall of our star on Earth mean? Ps: to play Sister Lúcia at the age of ten, it was selected not a humble-looking girl as in reality but a young actress with the appeal of a Disney Channel star. Vatican hagiographies have adapted to the regime of profane marketing. With Rossellini and "Francesco, giullare di Dio" ["The Flowers of St. Francis", 1950] it was not yet the cas_e.