Where do I begin? This film plays like a clumsy morality play, not a first-run film. The acting and direction is so ham-fisted, he even has Donovan singing what should be obvious about the story's message from watching the movie.
It takes little account of church politics, only tipping the director's hand to this reality in the final scene that seems to so irritate lovers of this film. The fact is, Pope Innocent III would have to have been an idiot to miss the opportunity to absorb St. Francis' movement. Making a martyr of him would only have made things worse for the Church. (In real life the Pope was reluctant to sanction the Order but relented when he had a dream of St. Francis supporting the church. Which only proves my point.)
Zefirelli plays into the Myth of the Righteous Poor, the 'dignity' of poverty and labour. In that sense the Franciscan Order truly is a godsend to the church hierarchy. They can sanction it as a kind of penitence for their own opulent lifestyle as a means of pointing to the actual message of Christ. And it keeps people enslaved to the existing economic-religious order, asking nor expecting nothing and certainly no threat to Catholic authority.
Brother Sun, Sister Moon thus becomes little more than a propaganda piece for Christian theology and misses the most interesting aspects of St. Francis' life and message. For instance there is little acknowledgement of his attachment to Nature and animals. I would have preferred an honest story that told of the obstacles, struggles, pain and suffering the Franciscan Order would have to have undergone, and how they coped as a community. There are inevitable questions and difficulties arising from such a break with society, worthy a goal as it may be. How are these met? Brother Sun and Sister Moon never goes deeper than surface level. Instead we get dogma.
The film is as some reviewers have noted, a product of its time, when many intentional communities ('communes') were breaking away from mainstream Western society to live a more Nature-centred, less materialistic way of life. But even this message is subsumed in the movie to the doctrinaire aspects of Christian theology.
The only reason I give this 3 out of 10 is because the production values are first-rate, the costumes incredible, the locations magnificent. Thoroughly professional but ultimately, a misfire. Read a biography of St. Francis instead.
It takes little account of church politics, only tipping the director's hand to this reality in the final scene that seems to so irritate lovers of this film. The fact is, Pope Innocent III would have to have been an idiot to miss the opportunity to absorb St. Francis' movement. Making a martyr of him would only have made things worse for the Church. (In real life the Pope was reluctant to sanction the Order but relented when he had a dream of St. Francis supporting the church. Which only proves my point.)
Zefirelli plays into the Myth of the Righteous Poor, the 'dignity' of poverty and labour. In that sense the Franciscan Order truly is a godsend to the church hierarchy. They can sanction it as a kind of penitence for their own opulent lifestyle as a means of pointing to the actual message of Christ. And it keeps people enslaved to the existing economic-religious order, asking nor expecting nothing and certainly no threat to Catholic authority.
Brother Sun, Sister Moon thus becomes little more than a propaganda piece for Christian theology and misses the most interesting aspects of St. Francis' life and message. For instance there is little acknowledgement of his attachment to Nature and animals. I would have preferred an honest story that told of the obstacles, struggles, pain and suffering the Franciscan Order would have to have undergone, and how they coped as a community. There are inevitable questions and difficulties arising from such a break with society, worthy a goal as it may be. How are these met? Brother Sun and Sister Moon never goes deeper than surface level. Instead we get dogma.
The film is as some reviewers have noted, a product of its time, when many intentional communities ('communes') were breaking away from mainstream Western society to live a more Nature-centred, less materialistic way of life. But even this message is subsumed in the movie to the doctrinaire aspects of Christian theology.
The only reason I give this 3 out of 10 is because the production values are first-rate, the costumes incredible, the locations magnificent. Thoroughly professional but ultimately, a misfire. Read a biography of St. Francis instead.