Francesco (1991)

I'm not prepared to pass any kind of harsh judgement against this film, because the DVD that Netflix has is pretty awful, and the American version is severely edited. From what I did see, however, the direction of this Francis of Assisi biopic isn't that good. Liliana Cavani, most famous for her exploitation film The Night Porter, directs this very blandly. Her casting is bad, too, and she seems to have made her choices for beauty's sake. After seeing The Wrestler a while back, I was left wondering who this Mickey Rourke person was, and when it was that he was a world-famous actor with a great career to which everyone refers. Having also recently revisited Rossellini's The Flowers of St. Francis, one of my favorite films, this film seemed like a natural choice. Rourke was indeed a great beauty at this point in his life. He's certainly not the gruff bruiser I know him as (from The Wrestler, Sin City, Man on Fire and Domino mostly). I'll have to see him in something else before I judge his earlier worth. He's not particularly good here. He doesn't seem to belong, anyway. Far too beautiful, and I wasn't convinced by his soft-spokenness. Helena Bonham Carter co-stars, and the rest of the cast is mostly Italian. I have to admit I was mostly bored by this film. It came off as a cheap made-for-TV biopic, though that could mostly be due to the crumminess of the DVD. The worst aspect is the electronic score by Vangelis. I have to admit I rather like his scores to Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, but his score here does not fit and is brutally awful much of the time.

My rating does not relate to the film itself but to the DVD release available in the US. I saw this film when it was released in Europe in the movie theater, and therefore know that in the present US DVD release there is a significant portion of this film missing. Let alone the fact that it's full screen. In the original film as a crusader Francisco committed severely violent acts before converting to religion. These scenes are all missing from the Trinity DVD release. For the sake of Christian propaganda this film has been mutilated! Unfortunately there is no complete English version available. There is an Italian/Greek version out there that's supposedly uncut and letterboxed.

I thought Mickey Rourke did a wonderful job portraying Francesco. I did not realize the historical surrounding of what was going on in Francesoco's time. It is so important to understand the context of what makes a person into what they are. His experiences and what he witnessed in the prison and the lavish lifestyle that he and his friends were a part of and his experience in reading the "word" in his own language affected him deeply.I also want to mention the portrayal of Chiara "St. Clare". What a truly beautiful and generous person. I believe that the way the movie portrayed his journey in faith gave a lot of insight to a truly great man. It has helped me in my own faith as a Christian and as a person in general. The movie really moved me.

I was surprised to see that Mickey Rourke did this movie. He does a lot of B movies. His performance was done very well. He can be a good actor when he applies himself. He just does not know how to pick good roles. The story was interesting. It tells the life of St. Francis of Assissi. It was very inspiritual. It is interesting to see how this sect of monks came to be. 7/10