Starring: Olivia Hussey and Sebastiano Somma
Director: Fabrizio Costa
Rated: PG
PLAYING in selected cinemas around Australia at present is Mother Teresa, a biopic about the saint of Calcutta.
This is a surprising film in the best sense. The production values are much higher than I was expecting, with some scenes beautifully realised by the Italian production team.
It takes up in 1946 with Mother Teresa’s growing awareness of the poverty that was surrounding her. But it also chronicles the spiritual desolation she felt for nearly 50 years.
Francesco Scardamaglia and Massimo Cerfollini’s script is a homage to an extraordinary woman, but it doesn’t stay away from some other controversies that surrounded her – the Logan scandal, the child trafficking charge, the number of early novices who left, the Nobel Prize dinner incident, questions about where her congregation received its money, how it was administered, and Mother Teresa’s famously poor record-keeping.
But in the film, as in life, Mother Teresa’s extraordinary and simple faith wins through.
Mother Teresa is touching on a number of other levels as well: How a very obedient woman must disobey her Loreto superiors, often, so that she can obey her conscience. Eventually, she has to leave her order altogether and found a new congregation.
There are a few sloppy mistakes in the direction that are distractions.
Before Vatican II, and especially as a Loreto Sister, nuns went everywhere in twos. This film has Mother Teresa going everywhere on her own.
And no nun in the 1950s would have touched a priest as much as Mother Teresa does in this film – on the hands, face and head.
On a partisan level I was sorry that the film never made clear that all the priests and bishops in Mother’s early life were Belgian missionary Jesuits in Calcutta who supported, directed, protected and enabled the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta to found the Missionaries of Charity.
Mother never forgot them, and it might have been fair to their memory to have included this detail.
There is quite a deal of stilted dialogue in the script, filled with quotes taken from Mother’s writings and speeches, and as good as Olivia Hussey is in the title role, the rest of the cast cannot match her ability or characterisation.
As a tribute to one of the most famous women of the 20th century, and, arguably, the most celebrated beata ever in the Church, Mother Teresa puts flesh on a complex person, who just wanted to be with Christ in and through the poor.
