The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story (2019)
Director: Aneesh Daniel. Cast: Stephen Baldwin, Shari Rigby, Sharman Joshy, Aditi Chengappa. (2019. 112 minutes)
This movie dramatizes the story of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his family who were burnt to death by an extremist during their mission among the destitute lepers in Odisha in 1999.
Manav Banerjee, a job-hunting journalist with his wife in full term pregnancy, gets a dream job as reporter with New Orissa newspaper. Manav’s editor Mishra assigns him to track the activities of Graham Staines to implicate the missionary in a case of illegal conversion. He demands incriminating evidence, which Manav is not able to. Manav is scared of leprosy and is prejudiced against Christian missionaries. He visits the lepers’ sanatorium in the remote village where Staines and family live with the poor lepers who are thrown out by their families and village.
Manav fails to understand such selfless acts of charity. He approaches it with the popular prejudice that the missionaries are using leprosy care as a pretext for proselytization aimed at undermining India’s social fabric. His repeated attempts to find incriminating evidence fail. Once he gets into trouble with the villagers as he speaks against the local customs. To escape their wrath, Manav cunningly incites them against the missionaries. His words make Mahendra and his buddies want to murder Staines and his family. They set fire to the jeep in which Staines and his young sons were sleeping. All three die in the fire.
In the midst of her intense suffering, Gladys Staines forgives the murderers. Manav has a change of heart and confesses to her his role in the incitement to murder. He confronts his editor Mishra to publish the truth, but fails. Manav publishes the true story in a national daily, exposing the lies propagated by New Orissa. He also comes to realize that Babulal Mishra, the cured leper he had encountered many times to get a confession of illegal religious conversion, had actually never changed his religion. Besides, Babulal was actually the father of the editor Mishra. He had been expelled from his community and ritually “cremated” on account of leprosy. Manav returned to share the life of the leprosy patients in the Staines’ establishment. Gladys Staines and her daughter continued the work of her husband.
Restless Heart (2012)
Director: Christian Duguay. Cast: Alessandro Preziosi, Franco Nero, Monica Guerritore, Johannes Brandrup, Alexander Held, Katy Louise, Sebastian Ströbel, Serena Rossi. (2012. 180 minutes)
The movie is based on the story of the illustrious saint and philosopher St Augustine (354-430). It draws most of the events from his Confessions. The film echoes the famous lines from Augustine’s Confessions: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”
The story is presented from the point of view of the aged Bishop Augustine in Hippo. The Vandals are about to attack the city. Augustine’s attempts to make peace fails. He declines to escape to Rome on board ships sent by the Pope, wanting to be with his people.
The flashbacks take us to Augustine’s early life in Thagaste in East Africa. Augustine’s pagan father is unfaithful to his wife and disliked by his son. Monica, the devout Christian mother, is praying for the conversion of both. Ambitious for a career in rhetoric, he arrives in Carthage to train under the famous lawyer and orator Macrobius. As a rising star in that world, Augustine lives a dissolute life and takes a mistress with whom he has a son. His power of rhetoric and unscrupulous ways make him a successful lawyer. Under the advice of his close friend Valerius, he goes to Milan to be the advocate of the emperor Valentinian against the saintly Bishop Ambrose, who is famed to be the greatest orator in the empire. Ambrose has been speaking against the Emperor for the rights of the Church. Augustine is now a Manichaean. Bishop Ambrose comforts Monica, saying that a son of so many tears cannot be lost.
After much personal struggle and hesitation, Augustine hears God’s words asking him to “take and read.” The passage he gets pierces his heart, and he bursts into tears. He is received into the church by Ambrose. Augustine becomes a priest and then bishop in Hippo. His writings are among the best-known religious classics of history. One of the most famous lines from his Confessions is his telling God: “Late have I loved Thee, O beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved Thee. Thou wert within me, and I outside.” God had sought him, drawn him to himself and given Augustine what his heart was always longing for.
Dr Gigy Joseph
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