Kateri

Forgive my ignorance of Latin but I understand "Mirabile Dictu" to mean something like "Beautiful to say." It fits as this film won the 2016 Capax Dei Foundation Award at the 7th annual International Catholic Film Festival Mirabile Dictus.

This film was generated by seemingly a sparse crew, James Kelly wearing both the Producer and Director hat while Garry Flugge sports both the hat Associate Producer as well as cinematography. And yet the film does have a full picture feel. There are many different scenes, mostly which were lit by available light. There is even a beautiful effect that wasn't a special effect at the beginning of the film. I don't want to give too much away but keep your eyes peeled for the arrival of the new missionary to Kateri's village. Their apparition-like entrance was the result of a blessed opportunity and not a special effect.

Catherine Tekakwitha, I have come to understand, was the actual name whose life this film portrays. But the Mohawk people with whom she lived modified it to Kateri. To me, that morphing of something familiar and recognizable into something seemingly very different, is a good metaphor for the story of Kateri's life. First, it fits how Kateri saw the familiar pattern of Native American cosmology and yet felt the call of service in a life of devotion to this outside religion, Christianity. It shows up in the concerns of her uncle and aunts in that they envision a future for her of marrying and being a wife and mother. And yet she instead confounded them by refusing that life, insisting she wanted to live of devotion to God.

The aboriginal practices and rituals of the Native American she lived with probably seems bizarre and even a bit shocking to the average viewer. And yet, we are taken off that path by Kateri's single-hearted devotion as a servant of the Lord. If we watch those rituals carefully, we might get a sense of how bizarre Kateri's choices were to her family. As weird as we might find those, Christian thought and ritual was as strange and bizarre to the average member of the Mohawk village. This is the core of the story in "Kateri."

Sometimes on a small film, the actors are somewhat inexperienced or not of the highest talent so there are dreary scenes of unconvincing dialogue or dubious non-verbal communication. Not true in Kateri. The acting is first rate.

To me the only challenge was understanding some of the dialogue. Because what is said is so important, I didn't want to miss a single word. But sometimes it was a little hard for me to understand. Small films often don't quite have the ability to record the audio of the live action well and looping of it is out of budget (and can be difficult to look seamless). For example, in a scene in which villagers including Kateri speak in the Native American language, there were usually subtitles to help the viewer. But there weren't the same subtitles if the dialogue was English. Disclaimer: I often have great difficulty understanding dialogue in a lot of movies and films so this could mostly be an issue for me.

Overall, though, it is a superlative film. An important, well-written story, beautifully shot and excellently acted.

In the 1600's, the French were colonizing both Canada and upstate NY. They slaughtered Indians in the process. Here come the Jesuits to convert the natives to Catholicism. Even as a lukewarm Catholic, I am troubled by evangelization of any kind. The movieitself is fine, with a strong lead performance by an Hispanic actress playing the role of a Native American. It is predictable but a worthwhile film for true believers.