The Apparition

The Apparition is considerably better than its scores on IMDB and MetaCritic would suggest. Comments posted by some viewers reflect their unhappiness about the film's length and about it's failure to put forward rigid conclusions. Maybe they've been watching too much simplistic TV.

This story demands that each viewer must make his or her own decision about what to believe. This is not a religious film, although it can be viewed that way. It is about the human belief mechanism and how it is influenced by what we want to believe and what we choose to doubt. There are scenes in this film that leave the viewer wondering what he or she should conclude, which is exactly what the characters in the film are experiencing.

At its core, this is the story of two people. We meet first an adult male journalist, somewhat cynical, who has just lost a close friend. He is troubled by what he regards as his failure to protect his friend. He agrees to help the Vatican investigate claims of a miracle. The other primary character is an attractive teen-aged girl who says she witnessed an appearance of the Virgin Mary. The girl was an orphan who grew up in foster homes and orphanages and has pledged herself to a life as a nun. Those two characters form an unexpected bond as the story progresses. We are left with a question: what qualities of human behavior are "saintly"? This is a thoughtful work, no easy answers, just like life.

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.

The film had great potential but the ending was terrible. It's as if we watched a draft of an unfinished story in the making. This could have been a brilliant Beautiful film. The little actress who played Anna is absolutely. Adorable. I think the plot could have been fantastic.

Religious belief is a subject not often discussed in the cinema and there are very few 'great' religious films; the best of them more often dealing with doubt than with faith, ("Ordet", "The Diary of a Country Priest"), while the ones dealing with visions and miracles often cheapen the subject, (Linda Darnell as the Virgin Mary in "The Song of Bernadette"). Now we have "The Apparition", a very detailed and serious account of the Catholic Church's investigations into determining whether a young girl's claims to have seen the Virgin Mary are true or not. The twist, for want of a better word, is that the man tasked with carrying out the investigation is a journalist and a non-believer still grieving over the loss of his colleague.

Xavier Gianolli's film is clearly a work of considerable intelligence that midway through appears to radically change course, though not quite in the way you might expect. As Jacques digs deeper into the girl's past the film becomes something of a policier; he might be investigating a murder or a kidnapping rather than a vision of the Blessed Virgin. Given that he has very little to do but look glum and ask questions Vincent Lindon is excellent as the investigator and given that she has very little to do but look enigmatic Galatea Bellugi is equally good as the girl. If, ultimately, the film never rises to the heights of "Ordet" it certainly deserves kudos for tackling a difficult subject in such a way as to make you think about the issues involved while keeping you entertained at the same time.

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.