…It’s a kind of cinema that, while deploying all the sumptuous resources and typical thrills of a blockbuster, is thoroughly engrossed in the spiritual vicissitudes of its characters. We’re talking about films of epic substance, attentive to the geography of the soul, to those secret corners of the heart where a symphony of contrapuntal passions is composed, full of heartrending conflicts of conscience, fierce loyalties and festering betrayals, that show us an x-ray of the contradictory essence of humanity, capable of the vilest acts, but also of the noblest and most superhuman plans and enterprises. There Be Dragons, in fact, deals with just such a noble and superhuman plan. Joffé’s movie brings back the epic spirit of The Killing Fields and The Mission. As he did in those two films, Joffé leads us to the very core of suffering, where the darkest shadows have free rein. Then we discover - just as in those two memorable films - that even there, where everything seems lost, the light that illumines the journey of man on earth can still shine out.
The bearer of that light is, in this case, a young priest from Barbastro, who, in a place where atavistic hatreds are triumphing, sows a seed of forgiveness and reconciliation whose fruits will spread over the generations, crossing frontiers, healing wounds that seemed incurable. The priest who carried that light is Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, founder of Opus Dei, and the source of that light is, of course, divine. It’s surprising that a director who calls himself an agnostic should be able to penetrate so sincerely and without prejudices into the heart of a religious vocation; that he should capture perfectly the ultimate meaning of that vocation: that by embracing the Cross one achieves an intimate union with human suffering.
- Excerpts of review by Juan Manuel de Prada
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Showing already here in the Phils. CAN’T WAIT! Grr. St. Josemaria, help me find time to watch it.
