10 Films (or More) Any Catholic Should See

I was asked recently to recommend 10 films for a Catholic film group, picking 10 must see films. I decided to post them on my blog and provide alternatives in cases where I was uncertain I would meet agreement. These films are not all Catholic or even specifically religious, but are all films that could be viewed and discussed profitably by a Catholic film study group.

1. Winter Light by Ingmar Bergman. It is the second in Bergman's famous Trilogy of faith, along with Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence. The film explores the doubt and existential angst of a pastor alarmed by China's development of the atomic bomb. Alternatives by Bergman, besides the other two mentioned, might include Wild Strawberries, dealing with the question of loneliness, aging and death, a film recommended by the Vatican in it's famous list a few years ago. A supplement to the first film on the Criterion Collection edition is "Ingmar Bergman Makes a Movie", one of the best "making of" films I have ever seen, about Winter Light.
See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Light, The Criterion Collection, http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/89

2. The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Pier Pasolini. Made in BW 35 MM, raw, faith to the language of St. Matthew, controversial in part because Pasolini was a Marxist and a homosexual, yet generally conceded to be the best film ever on Jesus.
See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_According_to_St._Matthew_%28film%29 and also: http://www.glyphs.com/words/film/95/stmatt.html

3. The Color Of Paradise by Majid Majidi. Majidi is not a Christian, but an Iranian Muslim, influenced at least by Sufism. This film is the only discussion I know of in film of the theme of the Beatific Vision. It tells the story of a young blind boy and his suffering as his father betrays his interests. It explores the question of what it really means to see. An alternative would be his The Willow Tree, if it has been released to DVD yet, dealing with a blind professors who regains sight through an operation, but faces a challenge to his faith as a result. See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majid_Majidi

4. A Man for All Seasons, the 1966 Academy Award Best Picture is on just about every list of favorite Catholic films. An alternative could be Becket, also an Academy Award Winner, exploring similar themes about a different saint.

5. The Flowers of St. Francis by Roberto Rossellini. It is based on the book The Little Flowers of Saint Francis and is the best film on this saint I have seen. The DVD extra includes an interview by his daughter that explains carefully the relationship between Rossellini's spiritual films and his earlier political/historical films. An alternative would be Francesco, with Mickey Rourke playing a manly St. Francis.

See Criterion Collection, http://www.criterion.com/films/874 and Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flowers_of_St._Francis

6. Andrei Rublev by Andrei Tarkovsky. This may not be his greatest film, but it explores very well the connection between art and religion. It tells a tale based loosely on Russia's greatest icon painter, about whom very little is known. See Wikipdia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev_(film)

7. Into Great Silence by Phillip Groning. The best treatment of Monastic life I have seen . Gronning lives in the Grande Chartreuse, were almost total silence is practiced, for one year, without a crew, doing all the filming by himself. It,s simple and poetic.

See http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/film.php?directoryname=intogreatsilence and also Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Great_Silence

8. The Tree of Wooden Clogs by Ermano Olmi. It is on the Vatican list mentioned above. It deals with the life or rural peasants in Northern Italy about 1900. It deals with poverty, justice and religion, particularly the devotion to the rosary that Italian women had.

See http://decentfilms.com/sections/reviews/1907

9. Babette's Feast by Gabriel Axel. This film is based on a short story by Isak Dinesen and deals with the lives of poor pious Danes in small protestant sects. It deals with the return of a woman from Paris long gone from the community who proposes the scandalous-- a gourmet French meal. Is it about earthly pleasure, or the Eucharist? you decide.

See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babette%27s_Feast

10. Finally, Robert Bresson, one of the greats of French film, with films strongly influenced by his Catholicism. Itt's hard to pick. His Diary of a Country Priest? His Trail of Joan of Arc ?
His Baltazar about a donkey as a type of Christ? Certainly for a Catholic study, one of those three.

See Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bresson and also http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/24/bresson.html

Waltz With Bashir: inflicting graphic violence on spiritial and political apathy and indiference

Waltz with Bashir is the best adult theme animated film of the decade. It takes on the theme of war in a manner I have never seen before. The film is about a filmmaker trying to reconstruct his memories of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980's, memories that have been blocked due to post traumatic stress. On the advice of a psychiatrist, he seeks out others he knows from the war, especially someone who appears in a reoccurring dream about what he thinks was a prelude to a civilian massacre. The film also has some useful things to say about memory. Walt with Bashir shows the debasement of a portion of the Israeli officer core, by showing a commanding officer watching a animated parody of a pornographic film, and only by putting that in context can it be justified. The technique of animation here has not made weaponry violence, death, or corpses any less graphic than the usual depiction. There is absolutely nothing cartoonish about it The quality of the voice acting is also very good. It is quite educational as far as the history of that war. The film is neither anti-Israeli or anti-Palestinian, but the Christian Phalangists come off with no-immediate redemption in the film. That's not to say it's anti-Christian. In fact when the movie was finished I made the sign of the cross and prayed. I must also warn you that it does contain a non-animated scene that make the anti-Nazi film of Auschwitz, Night and Fog, look tame.