Two Suitcases

Unrated

Catholic-ometer: 5 of 5

Enjoyability: 0.5 of 5

I thought about just launching right into a normal critique of everything I did and didn't like, but really, there was one main thing I liked, and a lot of things I didn't like.  For the sake of brevity, I'll mention the one thing I liked first, and then try to classify the problems in the next section.

Nothing in this film; and I mean -nothing at all,- contradicts actual history, scripture, or the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Now, on to the problems.  Again, I could be brief and just say "everything else," but I think it would be better to divide these problems into categories, to make them easier to understand.

I've heard this film called a docu-drama.  That's two categories right there.  How does it fare as a documentary, and how does it fare as a drama?

The last category I'll want to look at is how the film stacks up to the -other- Bakhita move; the one that, in spite of its inaccuracies (it was a historical fiction,) I actually liked.

Category 1: Documentary.

Documentaries exist in order to provide people with a method of gaining information about a particular subject by watching a video.  This is done without a lot of embellishment, in order to keep the focus on the information, which is what viewers of documentaries are after.  They're not looking to be entertained.  They want to know about the subject of the documentary.  Therefore, documentaries succeed on the basis of whether they deliver -true- information, and whether they deliver -sufficient- information.

As I said, there's no question that this film delivers -true- information about Saint Bakhita.  The problems arise when it comes to whether the information is -sufficient.-  It's not.  At all.  All you find out here is that Bakhita was black, that she was raised in Africa, that she was captured by men as a slave, sold to other men as a slave, was repeatedly beaten and suffered, and eventually became a nun.  Much more is known about her life than just this.  This is only the barest skeleton of what happened to her, and it doesn't even say why she was canonized.  As a documentary, this movie fails.

Category 2: Drama.

The greater part of the film is gobbled up by drama-like scenes of a Bakhita-obsessed nun and her brother, who didn't want her to join the convent.  They go on a tour to places that were important for Bakhita, and in the process, the brother learns some kind of lesson, or something.  What, precisely, he learns, and how is not sufficiently explained, however.  He gets upset from time to time, but I wouldn't call it "drama."

"Drama" involves some kind of emotional scene taking place on screen; some sympathetic character going through something that's difficult for them.  However, there are no sympathetic characters in this movie.  I cared less and less about the nun and her brother as the film wore on, because all they talked about was Bakhita or things related to her, and you can't consider Saint Bakhita to be a sympathetic character in this movie, for the simple reason that -she's not in this movie.-  As a drama, therefore, this movie fails.

Category 3: From Slave to Saint

The very-inaccurate movie "From Slave to Saint," is superior to this film in a lot of ways.  It does drama exceptionally well, where this film does not, and tells an amazing story which, even though it was fiction, was still entertaining.  There is really only one thing that this film could offer to surpass it, and that is information that the previous film left out; another chapter in Saint Bakhita's story.  It could talk about Augusto Michieli and his wife and daughter.  It could talk about the time she spent in the convent (something that the previous movie touched on very little,) or, perhaps most conspicuously, it could discuss that one elephant in the room; her forced conversion to Islam while she was a slave.

However, the movie doesn't do any of these things.  No mention is made of Michieli, of Alice, of what she did in the convent, or worst of all, of Islam.  What term do they use when describing those to whom she was sold?  "A man."  Care to be a little more specific, movie?  We're waiting.  Sorry, but... fail.

Conclusion

This is a very poorly-constructed and low-budget travelogue with stock footage and narration played over the rare instances where information is given about Bakhita.  Even then, it's information that is -all- in "Bakhita; From Slave to Saint."  My conclusion is this; just watch the other Bakhita movie instead.  It will give you all the information you get here, and perhaps encourage you to read up on the real person, as it did for me.  Besides, it's actually entertaining and well-written, and this simply is not.

My grade, however, will be lenient, because what little information it -does- put in is correct, for whatever that's worth.