Flowers Of St. Francis (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

With "The Flowers of St. Francis" (1950), Roberto Rossellini achieves a minor miracle of sorts: he manages to make a film about a saint that isn´t a hagiography.

The film portrays St. Francis and his original followers (they are the "flowers" of the title) as kind-hearted, well-intentioned goofs who manage to do very serious work while not taking themselves seriously at all. They wander in the rain and stumble in the mud; they fight with each other over the best way to keep a cooking fire lit; they spin around in circles until they get dizzy and collapse to the ground, laughing at the sheer joy of life. Even St. Francis is hardly the solemn, fire-and-brimstone proselytizer you might imagine. Francis´ vision is clear and pure but he merely considers himself god´s jester (the original title of the film was "Francis: God´s Jester"), and he and his monks use their simplicity and naivety as their primary weapon to spread their message to the people.

The film is told in a series of vignettes that share little in common save for the main characters; think of it as the cinematic equivalent of a collection of short stories. Though St. Francis is the leader of the group, Rossellini does not privilege him over the other followers; this is truly a film about a community rather than any one man. If there is a single protagonist, in fact, it is probably the loveable Brother Ginepro who manages to get himself both into and out of one sticky situation after another by merit of his unflinching belief in his mission.

Ginepro´s greatest test comes in the film´s strangest and most elaborate vignette. While playing with a group of children, Ginepro learns that a tyrant named Nicolaio is laying siege to a nearby town. He walks directly into the warlord´s camp where the barbarian horde leaps upon the defenseless monk and tosses him about like a rag doll. Nicolaio, who is encased in a comically awkward set of plate armor (think proto-Darth Vader), then casually sentences Ginepro to execution, apparently out of sheer boredom. A local priest pleads on Ginepro´s behalf, but when he is dragged before the war chief once again Ginepro refuses to defend himself, only claiming to be a terrible sinner who deserves to be punished. Nicolaio, a giant of a man, is both stunned and confused by this tiny beggar´s humility. He tries to provoke Ginepro over and over only to be assaulted in return by the little monk´s implacable, serene smile. Eventually, the tyrant capitulates and calls off the siege and Ginepro returns home.

This vignette is a bit more comic and stagy than most of the stories. Rossellini takes great pains to emphasize that St. Francis was a real living, breathing human being. Francis does not perform any miracles in this film, though he shows extraordinary kindness to a passing leper, nor does he display any super-human wisdom. The son of a rich man, Francis simply chose to abandon all the comforts of privilege, carrying nothing more than the robe on his back as he pursued a life of simplicity and purity while preaching the word of God. His followers love him dearly, and he loves them in return. Rossellini, in turn, clearly loves St. Francis but resists the urge to romanticize him, drawing more inspiration from Francis´ humanity than his beatification.

Rossellini, one of the founders of Italian neo-realism, cast real Franciscan monks in most of the major roles. These aren´t grim, glowering penitents, however; in fact, the monks have an awful lot of fun playing their roles and they lend a gentle, comic touch to the movie. The film´s style mimics its subject. Using simple camera set-ups and location shooting, the film is a model of austerity and purity, though it is perhaps a bit more stylized than many neo-realist films mostly because Rossellini pays frequent homage to medieval artwork of the time, particularly Giotto´s frescoes.