Miracle in the Valley (2016) 96 minutes
Director: Don Schroeder
Cast: Emily Hoffman, Pat Boone, Edward Asner, Diane Ladd, Richard Tyson, Stephanie Linus, Shari Rigby, Kassandra Voyagis.
Set in the year 1906, in Booneville town, Anderson Valley, Northern California, this movie tells the story of the teen aged Melinda who is born out of wedlock. She is ill-treated by her stepfather Maddox and treated with disdain by the local community. Alice, her mother, is bullied by Maddox and is helpless. Melinda’s father is rumored to be dead. Her initial attempts to find what happened to her father Thomas Briggs fail except for some tidbits of information. Alice is haunted by guilt on account of her thoughtless decisions. The wealthy, unfaithful and overbearing Maddox virtually controls the town with his wealth and cunning. Unable to protect Melinda, following the mysterious murder of the local pastor who was her only consolation, Alice is forced to send the child to her grandmother. Melinda has no choice but to stay with Mary, her cranky and ailing grandmother, whom she nurses. Her grandmother provides her with what she has missed in life—love and family closeness. She also enjoys the new friendship with a younger boy named William who is an ardent Shakespeare fan who quotes extensively from Shakespeare’s plays, claiming that he composed them. Mary, in her fits of delusion, speaks a remote language called ‘Boontling’ practised in the valley long time back. Melinda picks it up and through it comes to learn about her father. She chooses to remain with the old woman and enjoys her life of freedom away from the bullying stepfather. However, her grandmother is laid up after an accident and during an earthquake, dies. When a man named Jeb adopts William things take a new turn. Heroically determined to unravel the truth about her father, Melinda seeks out the people of the town who know the story from whom she collects the carefully hidden facts of the case. She comes to know that the murderous Maddox was the man behind the loss of her father. Maddox is brought to justice. His power over the townspeople is broken when ordinary people provide evidence in the court. Alice is then restored to true faith by her friend. Melinda’s courage and faith eventually teaches everyone lessons of forgiveness, and reunites her lost family. Her search for truth brings grace.
The Passion of Bernadette (1990) 106 minutes
Director: by Jean Delannoy
Cast: Sydney Penny, Emmanuelle Riva, Catherine de Seynes, Malka Ribowska, Georges Wilson, Michèle André, Maurice Jacquemont, Roland Lesaffre, Michel Ruhl, Michèle Simonnet.
The sequel to the earlier Bernadette (1988), this movie follows the lesser known second phase of St Bernadette’s life. The narrative closely follows actual events, highlighting the making of a great saint, confined to the convent, mostly in the infirmary both as patient and nurse. Bernadette joined as an aspirant with the Sisters of Charity at Nevers in 1866, hoping to hide from her celebrity status. But things do not turn out as she had wished. Innumerable Lourdes devotees seek her advice and intervention. Continued sickness and ecclesiastical scrutiny assail her. On her admission, the Mother superior orders her to speak to the inmates about her past, especially her visions at Massabielle. There are others too, curious to explore Bernadette’s past pestering her about the apparitions at Lourdes. Bernadette tells the group about Our Lady speaking of Herself as Immaculate Conception. A bishop who is confessor to the Pope also visits her along with a countess and her husband who want to donate money to the local parish through her hands, which she rejects. All that she wanted was to be all alone with God. A visit to an orphanage shows how easily she connected with the children, telling them stories and jokes which invite the comment that her vocation is the vocation of charity. Being described as “stupid” (which she joyfully and meekly accepts) she is assigned to the care of the sick and washing toilets. It is also revealed that she has the gift of healing. Four months after her entry, on the brink of death Bernadette is allowed to make her vows in bed. But her recovery and assurance that she will live a bit longer makes the Mother declare the vows invalid and she sends her back to the novitiate. She takes it all joyfully and humbly and takes final vows along with others. This remarkable movie clearly depicts her life of suffering and how she undertakes suffering as her vocation.
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