Brother Sun Sister Moon
Brother Sun, Sister Moon (Italian: Fratello Sole, Sorella Luna) is a 1972 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Graham Faulkner and Judi Bowker. The film is a biopic of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Plot: Francesco, the spoiled son of Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy textile merchant, returns home from fighting in the war between Assisi and Perugia. Struck by a feverish illness that has forced him to leave the war, Francesco lies on his bed tormented by visions of his past when he was a boisterous, arrogant youth. During a long recovery process, he slowly finds God in the midst of all, in poverty, chastity and obedience, experiencing a recovery not only of his body but of his soul.
Healthy again, Francesco returns to his normal life as a rich young man. However, to the consternation of his parents, he begins to spend lots of time surrounded by nature, flowers, trees, animals and poetry as he becomes more and more reluctant to resume his prior life style. Pietro's obsession with gold now fills Francesco with revulsion, creating an open confrontation between Francesco and Pietro. Francesco rebuffs offers to take over the family business and throws the textiles out of the window. Pietro, frustrated, beats Francesco and humiliates him in front of the city's Bishop and population. Francesco renounces all his worldly possessions and his "noble" family name Bernardone and leaves Assisi naked and free from his past to live an ascetic and simple life as a man of God and nature.
Francesco goes toward the ruins of the chapel of San Damiano, where he hears God's voice asking him to restore it. Much to the dismay of his family, friends and the local bishop, Francesco gradually gains a following amongst the poor and the suffering. His friend Bernardo happily joins him after returning from a Crusade that left him in sorrow and emptiness. Two other friends, Silvestro and Giocondo, admiring Francesco's new life style as a beggar, help to rebuild the chapel of San Damiano.
Clare, a beautiful young woman also from a wealthy family, serves and cares for lepers of the community. She joins the brothers in their life of poverty. Meanwhile in Assisi, the high classes of nobility, including the Bishop, protest against Francesco and his group, worried about them "corrupting" the whole of Assisi's youth and they command Francesco's friend Paolo to hinder and stop the so-called "minor brothers".
One day the chapel is set on fire by the establishment, and one of the parishioners is dead. Because of conflicts between the high corrupted levels of the Church and Francesco's group, Francesco decides to walk to the Vatican in Rome to ask Pope Innocent III for advice. Once in Rome, Francesco becomes stunned by the enormous wealth, power, lust and emptiness that surrounds the throne of St. Peter. When brought to face the Pope, Francesco breaks from reciting Paolo's carefully prepared script and calmly protests against such pomp and worldliness, reciting the scriptures (which was not allowed) to prove that Christ's words are totally opposite to Rome's wealth. Due to his protest, Francesco and his friends are jailed, and, finally accepting his admiration toward Francesco, Paolo decides to join them, revealing to Francesco how ashamed he is to be dressed in fine and luxurious clothes in front of a humble and kind man dressed as a beggar.
Apparently convinced by the sincerity of Paolo's conversion, the Pope orders Francesco and his friends to be brought back. To everyone's astonishment, the Pope kisses Francesco's feet and blesses him and his companions, wishing for them a long world-wide society of men and women willing to serve God in just that way. Some of the final lines from Rome (in juxtaposition to the well-established tone of the film) place the sincerity of the Pope's display in question, if the words speak for the Pope: "Don't be alarmed, his holiness knows what he is doing. This is the man who will speak to the poor, and bring them back to us." The film finishes with the sight of Francesco slowly walking alone into the distance in the countryside.
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