Brother Sun, Sister Moon
This 1973 Franco Zefirelli biopic about Saint Francis attempts to show the flowery side of the riches-to-rags monk from Assisi. But despite the director’s best conceptual efforts, Brother Sun, Sister Moon paints too campy a picture of a this real-life historical figure to earn any real credibility.
From the opening scene, it’s clear that this is more European arthouse cinema than American studio narrative. Francesco, the son of a successful merchant, returns from the crusades in a feverous stupor, too traumatized to speak. Because we observe the passage of time through Francesco’s tormented eyes, it’s difficult to connect with anyone or identify with anything on screen until his war-profiteering father attempts to speak some worldly sense into his stupefied son.
Eventually Francesco’s peculiar motive becomes clear when he rejects not only excessive materialism, but publicly renounces the very foundation of Italian class society by shedding his merchant-class clothes in front of the local bishop. As he goes into self-exile and begins to rebuild an old church he gains a faithful following, ranging from fellow ex-crusaders to the poorest beggar in Assisi. The new communal collective lives a Christ-like life of simplicity, servitude, and brotherly love. Needless to say, the local bishop is not impressed with Francis’s DIY church community. The aristocracy and clergy do their best to snuff out the proto-Marxist flame before Francis’s “new” form of Christianity spreads like wildfire.
The weakest and most distracting element of this film is the music (composed and performed by singer-songwriter Donovan). Anyone who remembers the animated Hobbit movie from the 70s will know what sort of musical interference I’m talking about. In narrative films, music serves as an aid to the plot, magnifying emotions and setting the tone for each scene. In musicals the songs are the plot. But unfortunately Brother Sun, Sister Moon falls into that no-man’s-land between the two. The actors themselves usually don’t do the singing. Instead, an off-screen voice sings flowery hippie ballads about how great love is, scene after scene. Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a negative thing if the songs themselves weren’t so unbelieveably terrible. Donovan’s strummy guitar and corny lyrics are so high in the mix, they’re impossible to ignore. It’s all so… early 70s.
Saint Francis’s life story is a compelling one, full of love and self-sacrifice. Unfortunately this film falls short of showing us just how amazing his life was. If Zeffirelli’s aim was to make Saint Francis real in any way, he failed to do so. The end result is a bizarrely mediocre portrait of an extraordinary man.