The Apparition

I don't know what to say other than the ending was hanging in the grey ... bland, uninteresting, and disappointing.

This is a curious subject, an investigation to find out if the apparition of a nun's virgin is true or not. With Vincent Lindon as a war reporter mandated by the Vatican to carry out the investigation.

Nice cast to support this story. The young Galatea Bellugi is impressive. Vincent Lindon follows this story, always a little suspended, in a universe where some are ready to believe many things.

Xavier Giannoli masters from beginning to end this story, rather iconoclastic nowadays because it is not very much related to societal concerns. The story has multiple dimensions: the Vatican protocol; the investigation of Vincen Lindon; the character of Galaté Bellugi, and her relationship with Vincent Lindon; the media exploitation by the believers (Anatole Taubman, impressive); the beliefs of the pilgrims. In short, even if the subject may not be interesting at first, the film is fascinating.

Xavier Giannoli knows how to choose the music of the film, which are all magnificent and accompany the images well.

I was a little bit disappointed with this rather undercooked mystery. It's "Mayano" (Vincent Lindon) who's the latter day "Van Helsing" charged by the Vatican to investigate claims being made the young "Anna" (Galatéa Bellugi) that she has had a visit from the Virgin Mary. His arrival in the small, provincial town, introduces him to a girl who really does believe, as do many of her fellow villagers but there is an equal amount of scepticism from others more disparaging and he, himself, finds his usually impartial and objective techniques compromised as the mystery deepens and the pressures grow on him to deliver a result - and not any old result, either! Whilst he is trying to prove or disprove, the young girl is finding herself subjected to additional pressures from those seeing an eye for a main chance exploiting the faithful and the gullible alike. Quite a quandary for "Mayano"... The concept is a more modern take on a well trammelled story, but sadly auteur Xavier Giannoli takes a bit too safe a route to explore this combination of superstition and cynicism, and Lindon hasn't really enough charisma to sustain this quite lengthy drama as the plot "twists" deliver rather expectedly. There's a solid supporting cast and the young Bellugi offers us moments when we can't but empathise with such a heavy burden being placed on such young shoulders, but she doesn't really feature often enough and in enough depth for us to really get our teeth into this. It has a slightly documentary feel to the photography which I felt rather summed the whole thing up rather well - it's all rather passionless, wordy and too dry.

I just saw a surprisingly interesting movie called The Apparition. No, not a horror flick, but rather a spiritual detective story, about a secularish journalist who is recruited onto a Vatican commission to investigate a sighting of the Virgin Mary in a French Village.

I hesitate to recommend it because it is 2 1/2 hours long, although it never seemed to drag. The lead is played by Vincent Lindon, one of those deep-voiced French actors who seem to purr their lines rather than speak them.

One of the realities that the movie explores is how uncomfortable the Catholic Church is with these kinds of sightings, which are subjected to intense scrutiny. Very few of them receive the Church's endorsement. Most are eventually rejected as unauthentic. Part of the Church's problem is its orthodoxy. The Church is like a sheepdog, driven by instinct to perpetually circle its flock, keeping them in a tight bunch. Every question of faith must be either dogma or heresy, believed by everybody or by nobody -- lest they forfeit the high ground of orthodoxy. Superimposed on this is the Church's need to protect its role as intermediary between man and God. If direct experience of the divine is commonplace, the Church and its sacraments are unnecessary. And if visionaries are adored and invested with exceptional spiritual powers, they wind up in direct competition with the hierarchy. The Church is (rightly) fearful of the potential mischief of cults.

Critics have charged the movie with lack of focus, and the director with lack of discipline, and the ending with lack of resolution. They have missed the point. One of the main themes is that different people pursue different sorts of truth. The Vatican wants spiritual truth. The journalist just wants to know exactly what happened (or didn't happen) and is not much concerned one way or the other with its spiritual significance. His is not a conflict of faith; his conflict is that his instinct as a journalist tells him that the girl he is investigating is sincere, but the facts don't add up. In this context, the ending is perfect. But the movie is a rich tapestry, with a lot else going on. It treats every character (save one, an American evangelist) with respect, and allows each his or her own truth. Its theme requires a broad focus, and a wandering camera. And 2 1/2 hours.

Investigative journalism commissioned by the Vatican in order to determine whether or not a teenager has seen the appearance of the Virgin, as she claims With films like Xavier Beauvois' "Men and Gods" (2010) and Anne Fontaine's "The Innocent" (2015), French cinema has re-approached religious questions. The Apparition embraces the difficult exercises of (i) filming the imperceptible and the faith & (ii) addressing the exciting questions of belief, religion and existential options & ways. It relies on a virtually fascinating subject - clairvoyance regarding the Virgin Mary - by dealing with the subject of faith through a canonical inquiry, an angle which until now has never been treated in the cinema, which is altogether unknown by the general public, and which is herein approached with sufficient accuracy and twists to interest any spectator. In the role of the photographer on the case of an alleged appearance, Vincent Lindon is convincing as a Cartesian agnostic who questions the truth and doubts during a down-to-earth approach that contrasts with the mystical dimension of the subject. The film finds its interest in an exciting first part where we get acquainted with the young clairvoyant, Anna played by Galatea Bellugi. Too bad then, that it ends up lost in several anecdotal tracks and several different stories where the situations, not really fully resolved, confer to the story a frustrating, and a bit too austere edge, which prevents it from reaching the level of the Beauvois essay. Regretfully Giannoli fails to give a sustained breath to this very much alive and attractive story.