Selected scene excerpts: transcription
In memoria di me (In Memory Of Me): 2007 (Italian)
I was very taken by this film, so much so that I had to rewatch it whilst 'pausing' intermittently in order to take down the words. I would only do this if I thought it was worth it, words can give one insight to internal realisations that one would not otherwise afford through any other medium, but then different mediums give us different insights so keeping ones life varied in the type of stimuli can lead us to many different and rich places in our minds.
The main character is Andrea, a novice about to embark on his training to his priesthood, a dark haired man with dark intelligent eyes. The film follows his personal journey of faith, doubt and self-realisation within the confines of this muted monastic environment. The atmosphere is heavy and the ominous sense infuses most of the scenes and heightened further by the concentrated expressions of Andrea as he learns of his environment.
@The opening scene is an interview with Andrea and the Questioner at the seminary. The seminary is situated on an isolated island in the beautiful setting of Venice.
Questioner says:
Why are you here? (Why is he at the Seminary studying to be a priest?)
Andrea says:
I want an ‘ideal’, a reason to live.
I don’t want the freedoms that everyone else chases.
It is ‘false’!
A ‘false freedom’!
Questioner says:
What type of life have you been leading up until now?
Andrea says:
One that has been without depriving my self of anything
I have loved and yet I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere,
I felt like I had nothing more to give and my heart suffered.
But I buried into myself asking ‘why’.
Anyway for everyone else I was a winner.
I started losing sleep because I was afraid to turn around and find that there was nothing there.
I don’t know why I started going to Mass and reading the gospel.
It’s hard to explain………
A new way of ‘being’ occurred to me
Questioner says:
What do you want to become?
Andrea says:
A PERSON
Note: For Andrea, life holds no satisfaction and he uses the words ‘false freedoms’ which may be interpreted very widely, so he seeks God for answers. A life without a pursuit in God is unsatisfactory for him because even the highest forms of ‘happiness’ available to humanity in the sensory freedoms of life are not enough to equal the satisfaction derived from seeking God’s grace (he hopes, at this moment in time).
@ Next scene where Andrea arrives at the Father Superior’s office for the first time:
Father Superior says:
Please be seated.
Well done, you have passed the brief test of isolation.
Tomorrow, you will encounter your personal silence.
Silence sharpens discernment and will assess the vocation.
It is there as you know; this period dedicated to spiritual training.
It’s a question of changing your perspective, of changing the way you have viewed the world up until now.
To obtain a new perspective we must envelope ourselves in silence and prayer, we are not accustomed to listening to the silence which speaks deep within us…..where God dwells.
The rules of the house serve this purpose.
You will learn this.
Some of this will perhaps surprise you.
They will challenge your way of thinking.
Your brother will be looking out for you in the same way you will be looking out for them.
Indicating the shortcomings of a brother is to the Father Superior an act of charity.
It is like self-denunciation like confessing our own sins the dark side of your self which needs to be bought to light.
Do not forget that while there is a test of the order, the order will be testing you.
Note: The objective of the noviate is to ‘excavate’ further the depths of ones own purpose as a novice on the way to priesthood?
The overriding objective is to seek the ‘clarity’ which can only come about from the absence of distraction whereby the voice and presence of God is the only stimuli left in ones reality.
The isolation is like a ‘cleansing’ or ‘purifying’ process from our secular life of muddled purpose, essentially a seeking of a ‘new way of being’ as Andrea put it.
@ Communal evening meal time
I don’t remember whether this was before or after the communal meal where Fausto says: (this is loosely from memory paraphrased)
A person who truly recognises his own sins is better the one who sees an angel???
A person who prays in private is better than the one who enjoys the fame of his church.
Note: Fausto flags up the themes of ‘human weakness’ or ‘interference’ than can get in the way of ‘pure faith’. The ‘interference’ of faith is the personal identification of ones own faith in its private and public contexts.
The private face of faith is the true and pure one, while the public face of faith is unreliable in its sincerity of belief. The over-dependence on the public face of faith can indicate other motivations?
Fausto is a curious character, since he can identify the hallmarks of a ‘true faith’, yet he later ends up leaving the noviate because he says his mind is empty of any presence.
@45 minutes into the film: Andrea addresses the group of seated novices
What have we given up?
What we wouldn’t have wanted anyway?!
‘Love’ is commonplace that it was destined to die out of habit.
We have discovered that our revolution lies in rules.
Daily routines, rituals and liturgies which stop us from straying from the path
But this is still no guarantee that we will become better men.
We quote the scriptures.
Meditate using the gospel.
But no-one knows better than we do; how difficult it is to live by them.
Should we blame ourselves for this?
Is there another path for us?
Other than teaching the Gospel?
No.
We know that we must be guides for Humanity that according to the Gospel desires ethics that when sensing love prefers severity, that when hoping for forgiveness hurries to condemn. (This is clearly a criticism of practice)
A humanity that when it should fall silent and weep asks God to answer for what it is and it alone should have done?? (I don’t know if that bit is correct??)
Fausto says:
There is no love in what you say!!!
Andrea says:
I am not expecting people to fall in love?
I am here to learn the contents of my faith
Fausto says:
But love is the contents of the faith!!!
I think people should fall in love with Christ even having never read a word of the wealth of literature written about him.
How can you be so scientific about him!?
(Note: So Fausto believes in a more instinctive way with faith, in the end of the story, it becomes clear that Fausto had a crisis of faith all along, so this episode is an defensive outburst borne from an insecurity about his own faith and an attempt at ‘keeping up appearances’. Andrea is being honest and open about his own crisis, while Faust is concealing his. Before Fausto gave a speech about the public and private face of faith, he identified the falseness of public faith yet he is committing the very same criticism. Fausto has played a reverse psychology game out of personal desperation.)
Andrea says:
We are called upon to explain the reasons of our faith!?
The Gospel exists.
He who explains it must offer instruments for it to be understood.
Fausto says:
You are the Gospel when you are the Priest?
It is in that the people expect to see Christ
If there wasn’t a single copy of the Gospel in the world if I were told that God doesn’t exist, that Jesus Christ was only a lie, but if through someone else I truly experienced him myself, be certain, I’d prefer to stay with Christ than with all the truths of the world.
@1hour 30 minutes into the film:
“Tell me who I am”
“Tell me why I’m here”
“Who am I?”
“I pretend”
“I pretend”
“I’M PRETENDING”
“I’M PRETENDING” (slams his hand)
“I’m not able to love” (he cries)
“I am not able to love” (tears in eyes)….
“It’s not me”
“Do you understand me ….. It’s not me!”
“I’m worthless!”
“I don’t believe in anything!”
@1hour 38 minutes into the film:
After Andrea agrees to leave with his fellow novice Fausto from the seminary and noviate, he prepares his belongings to leave.
Andrea has his bag over shoulder and walks down the dark corridor, he hears some voices from the Father Superior’s room. It is Fausto and the Father Superior in discussion. Andrea eavesdrops and views through the door ajar with the light of the office illuminating his face amidst the dark surrounds of the corridor.
Father Superior says:
Why do you come to me?
To tell me that you want to be free!
You have always been free here!
You look at me with pride!
You should know that I spent some time chasing after the freedom you say you love.
What he was asking for was ‘unrestrained love’!
(It is said with emphasis in his voice)
But Christ had ‘too much’ faith in humanity!
Humanity does not want to be free!
Humanity wants to be slaves.
And so, we above all have chosen ‘his’ freedom, we have the ‘right’ to teach how it isn’t the ‘freedom of choice’ which your heart desires that counts.
Nor ‘the love’ you desire.
BUT, but ………… The Mystery,
- The Terrifying Mystery of a Weak God!
(Fausto says nothing throughout)
(Andrea’s expression looks changed as he hears these words, a moment of revelation has occurred in him)
Note: The words from Father Superior hit upon the bedrock of what anchored him to this life of devotion. A personal interpretation of Father Superior’s motivations was revealed through the following words ‘the terrifying mystery of a weak God’. These words were supposed to be for Fausto but Andrea inadvertently received them, an accident that ‘may’ or ‘may not’ have occurred had he not stopped to listen in on a conversation not for his ears.
In a way, one could say, it was like a ‘fate’, he was supposed to hear those words, they were meant for him, he was at the right place at the right time’, those words registered in Andrea but NOT in Fausto, like a key to a lock, Andrea’s faith was the ‘right key’, whereas Fausto’s was not, so Fausto left the vocation.
So what was Fausto about?
Fausto’s conception of faith was one of pure instinct, like a form unquestioning ‘love’, but this is an incomplete faith.
Fausto’s faith was under developed and emotionally ‘child-like’. A child is quick to like and quick to hate, they are quick to emote if things go well or bad for them. There is a fragility with a ‘pure love’ since love can turn to an intense hate and blame when things go wrong.
Whereas for Andrea was emotionally mature, for him ‘going through the motions’ in life are what most people call ‘fulfilling pleasures’.
The closing words of Andrea:
I occupy a place in God’s eyes
I am his plan
I was NOT made in vain
THE END!
(Excuse any grammar mistakes)
