DVD: Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972)

Amazon.com: DVD: Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972)

I watched this the other night. (not the DVD, but the video, which I found in a closet I was cleaning.) Fascinating.

This is the Zeferelli version of the story of St. Francis of Assisi, full of heavy-handed imagery, gorgeous costuming and scenery, flower-power music, anti-establishment attitudes, constant references to the (at the time) new mass liturgy.

It was hard to watch. The dialogue and plot felt unbelievably mushy, gushy, trite, and banal.

BUT, it was a strong reminder of the time in which it was made, and this was enlightening. The music was sung by Donavan, who was my favorite singer during those years, and I still liked to hear him again, for all the same reasons.

The movie strongly associates traditional liturgical music with evil, and that's a little hard to take. But again, it's a reminder of WHERE WE WERE at the time, and how much we've learned. Also how much we've forgotten, and why the church has to speak from all our experience, old and new.

The phrases that seem so trite to me now were fresh in '72. The message--down with the pomp, down with music that no one understands, up with the core messages of Jesus, up with personal commitment--these were new to the baby boomers and their parents. The core concepts contained in this film were life-changing. They still are.

As the Buddhists are said to say, "The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon."