The 13th Day Delivers
by Daria Sockey in Reviews on Thursday, October 08, 2009 6:00 AM
Quick quiz: What was the most important event of 1917?
a. The Bolshevik revolution that led to Communist rule of Russia for 70 years.
b. The United States entered World War I
c. God publicly proved his existence before a crowd of 70,000 people
Faith & Family readers are a Catholic-savvy bunch, so I’ll bet most of you connected “1917” with “crowd of 70,000” and thought, “Oh yeah. She’s talking about the miracle of the sun at Fatima.”
But maybe the implications of that event don’t always strike us the way I described it above. Nonetheless, it is true: this spectacular sign in the sky, predicted by 3 illiterate children who claimed that the Mother of Jesus told them so, is a short cut from doubt to faith. I’m not saying we should always use the short cut.
The longer route of prayer, studying scripture and tradition, theology and apologetics – this is the normal way to nurture faith. But in those grey moments when prayer is dry, books seem dull, and dark thoughts come—maybe there is no God and death is the End.—nothing helps more than to recall the accounts of the spinning sun careening towards earth, casting a kaleidescope of color on the frightened multitude, and drying their sodden clothes in minutes.
It really happened. Therefore God, Jesus, heaven, the sacraments, the Church — it’s all true. That’s how I reason in those dreadful moments when the shield of faith is slipping from my trembling hands. Simplistic maybe, but it works every time.
The new Fatima movie, The 13th Day, lives up to the hype we heard all summer. It leaves older film versions in the dust in terms of cinematic artistry and special effects. Directors Ian and Dominic Higgins were illustrators before they were film makers, and it shows. Each shot looks like something one could frame and hang on a wall.
Most of the movie is done in black and white—color only blooms across the screen during each apparition. The absence of color makes the more primal light and darkness jump out at the viewer. The directors make almost constant use of close up shots — expecting us to read in the faces of the characters what the startling and disconcerting events at the Cova da Iria were doing to them.
The miracle of the sun is depicted perfectly: it matches eyewitness descriptions more accurately than any other movie version. And here’s a first: the vision of the “third secret” (that involved Pope John Paul II) is depicted on film for the first time.
After limited theatrical release on October 13th, the film will be available for smaller group screenings at parishes and schools. (Check out The 13th Day if you want to find a showing or host one yourself). After that, the DVD will be available for purchase from Ignatius Press.
I have a feeling that this film will be a “Catholic classic” for many years to come.
—Senior writer Daria Sockey writes from her home in Pennsylvania.
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