The Religion Hour (My Mother's Smile)
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.0
An unsuccessful painter is alerted by the Catholic Church that his late mother is up for canonization (!?) and he has trouble accepting the decision. I admire Bellocchio's attempt to address ambiguity towards Christianity and the personal struggle with faith, but this concept is too far a stretch for believability to allow (the reasons for making the woman a saint are vague and frail; I don't think it's quite so easy to be deemed a saint or that the Church would ever actively recruit such an ignoble candidate). Further, Bellocchio's style leans towards the overly symbolic and abstract, with a handful of somewhat pretentious digressions causing the already feeble setup to veer off-course. As for Mothers being considered Saints, if my own Mother doesn't achieve that status for putting up with my endless bullshit all these years, no one should.
