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FILM
Director:
John Bailey
Language:
English
Running Time: 86' |
Main Cast :
Rutger Hauer - Chaplain, Father Henri Marriott
Nancy Beatty - Sister
John Mahoney - Dr. Claude Baptiste
Mary McDonnell - Prioress, Mother Celine
Geraldine O'Rawe - Mariette Baptiste
Eva Marie Saint - Mother Saint-Raphael
Plot:
This is the story of Mariette Baptiste, a young, very beautiful, charming and devout girl who joins the Sisters of Crucifixion to follow her vocation. She is the daughter of a rich local doctor and the sister of the Prioress, Mother Celine.
Mariette goes often into trances and has hallucinations and she is convinced that Jesus appears and speaks to her.
People in her convent get puzzled when she starts bleeding from unexpected wounds on her body, hands and feet. They also start wondering whether those bleedings are in reality signs from Jesus Christ, holy stigmate. The Chaplain is convinced she is not just a mere psychiatric case, but that Mariette is indeed a real Saint.
In a mix of mysticism and erotic background, of strong faith and extreme madness, this film draws a thin line between spirit and flesh: can they be disjoined?
Notes:
The contemporary writer Ron Hansen, who wrote the book which inspired this film, is also the author of “Desperadoes”, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, “Nebraska”, “Atticus”, and a children's book, “The Shadowmaker”.
A native of Omaha, he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for “Nebraska”, a collection of short fiction. In an article in “Publishers Weekly”, Hansen said, “For me, the process of writing is the joy of writing. It's the putting down individual sentences, making them fit together, making the story interesting. Once you've completed a book, you realize how ramshackle a thing writing a novel is. You've somehow made it seem like it was always coherent. That's the satisfying aspect of writing, the really affirming thing about it”.
Set Shots:
 
 
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