Brother Sun Sister Moon

(Italy - UK)

Euro International/Vic. Director Franco Zeffirelli; Producer Luciano Perugia; Screenplay Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Kenneth Ross, Lina Wertmuller, Franco Zeffirelli; Camera Ennio Guarnieri; Editor Reginald Hills, John Rushton; Music Donovan; Art Director Lorenzo Mongiardino

Graham Faulkner
Judi Bowker
Alec Guinness
Leigh Lawson
Kenneth Cranham
Michael Feast

Brother Sun, Sister Moon is a delicate, handsome quasi-fictional biography of one of the great saints of the Catholic Church, Francis of Assisi. Franco Zeffirelli has utilized a style of simple elegance, befitting both the period and the subject.

Graham Faulkner makes an important film debut as Francis of Assisi. Judi Bowker, cast as a young girl who eventually sheds her materialistic existence for religious poverty, is stunningly beautiful, projecting the very essence of innocence.

Evidently edited from original form, the film utilizes flashback to establish briefly Faulkner's early life as a spoiled wastrel, indulged by parents Valentina Cortese and Lee Montague until a rude spiritual awakening in the fevers of wartime pestilence.

Faulkner's character evolution slowly recruits to the humble life of his friends. The illwill of older characters against the growsing band of mystics is portrayed with strength.

1973: Nomination: Best Art Direction

(Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1973. Running time: 121 MIN.

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