Early in “Restless Heart,” the old Bishop Augustine (acting
as a narrator for his early life) says, “My mother, who bore me into this world…”
and immediately we’re looking at a screaming Saint Monica and a midwife urging
her to push. The first thought that came to my mind was, “Really?” But the
scene turns out to be not so bad, even kind of inspiring. Which is a good summation
of the whole movie.
“Restless Heart” depicts
the life of Saint Augustine of Hippo through the completion of his most
widely-read work, The Confessions, but
it begins and ends with the old Bishop Augustine facing off against Vandal
hoards and proud, short-sighted Romans in his final days. This narrative frame
allows voice-over narration from The
Confessions themselves, which early on the filmmakers use to emphasize
events directly from the book (yes, you’ll see teenage Augustine stealing
pears—but he’s not very good at it). The
passages from The Confessions become
increasingly moving as the film climaxes into his conversion to love and truth.
I have to admit that such cinematic events give me
trepidation. A few years ago I got involved in the viral marketing campaign of
a film featuring a beloved Catholic saint. After weeks (months?) of spreading
the word, I discovered it was a mediocre trifle. The folks behind “Restless
Heart,” Ignatius Press Films, are
planning a similar campaign, but in this case there is an engaging, though
flawed, film at its heart.
Part of the superiority of Restless Heart is the greater
“filmability” of the source material—no doubt many Catholics have mused,
“Augustine’s such a great sinner, his life would make a great movie.” But
despite that, no one has succeeded in doing it until now. If Hollywood, say,
Jude Apatow (think Knocked Up, Bridesmaids) were making this movie, we’d have
to “enjoy” every bit of raunch and pomp in Augustine’s early life before
Learning Our Lesson About Growing Up in the latter section. In the hands of a
Catholic production company, the debauchery is handled more discreetly, although
little touches convey the ugly lasciviousness of Roman aristocracy. Augustine
clearly partakes early on (“Hey, Auggie, you left a bracelet at my place last
night”--I'm not kidding), but his relationship with his concubine Callida is portrayed with a
sympathetic, if sentimental, dignity. Or rather, Callida is portrayed with
sympathetic dignity, and the lovers' affection is genuine—if never exactly a relation
of equals. Augustine comes off as a good-hearted but self-absorbed lover and a
distant father. It's probably fair.
Where the film is particularly strong is in showing how love
and truth, which is to say conscience, tug at Augustine, even as he becomes a
spectacular but slimy lawyer and later a silver-tongued puppet in the imperial
court (oddly enough, the actor, Alessandro Preziosi, is the child of lawyers
and has a law degree himself) . Outside of a couple major acts of cowardice, Augustine is generally gracious to his tenacious mother Monica (Monica Guerritore), even
as he vilifies her faith and her church community in public. The film really begins to shine when Augustine, who works
himself into a lather of apparent conviction for a big performance, is pitted
against the churchman Ambrose of Milan (Andrea Giordana), who has equal rhetorical
mettle but also the convictions to back it. It’s no wonder the young man is drawn to Ambrose even as his job is
to publicly destroy him.
By the time Augustine’s heart finally does thaw, we’ve
gotten a thorough look at his intellectual and cultural world through his
creepy and ambitious pagan friend Valerius (Johannes Bandrup), his eerie
Manichean benefactor (whose mantra “No one is responsible for anything” drew
laughs from the Catholic audience), his cheerful but soulless teacher Macrobius
(Dietrich Hollinderbäumer), and the controlled and controlling empress mother
Justina (who looks a lot to me like Heather Graham). In Augustine’s world, philosophy
and religion are divided, and the justice system, the government, and the
military espouse whatever bring them convenience or glory. The credibility of the
Christian claim—made present through the righteous Ambrose, the long-suffering
Monica, and a Truth that seeks him out—becomes overwhelming, despite its cost
to his ambition. Restless Heart thus conveys the central drama of The Confessions to the screen, an
achievement not to be underestimated.
I have two main reservations in recommending the film. The line “these are facts, not
words” is repeated ad nauseum early in the film, and it is used primarily by Augustine’s
teacher and then Augustine himself to seduce their listeners into making words
seem like and replace facts. A movie based on real events presents images
that seem like facts, but can be equally deceptive. I will leave the full fact
check to real classical scholars; I am particularly concerned with one. We see
the older Augustine only as a man of peace. In reality, Augustine approved the
use of force to stem religious dissension, which is a difficult part of his legacy
to handle here, but to bring up the Donatist controversy without addressing this
legacy is disconcerting. The late encounter with the Donatists is, for me, the
movie’s main false note, showing us only what we want to remember about the
Doctor of Grace. This gives us a more edifying film but not, as we were
implicitly promised, the complete picture.
My other reservation concerns the conversion itself. After
all that Augustine has experienced, which the film helpfully recaps in
flashback form, he has plenty of reasons to convert. But the conversion itself
is portrayed as a kind of emotional collapse. What’s missing is the
continuation of what Luigi Giusanni calls “the itinerary of conviction,” beyond
the first day Augustine accepted faith. We see unbelieving Augustine,
struck-by-grace Augustine, and then ordained bishop Augustine. We miss how this
faith grew in plausibility through his post-conversion experiences. The movie
omits, for instance, that after his famous experience in the garden, Augustine gathered
with friends who concurred with the reasonableness of his new direction due to other's experiences.
Instead, the filmmakers swing for the fences, trying to use
cinematic techniques and imagery to portray an inner transformation. The
imagery is strong, but the cinematic techniques lead to at least one
eye-rolling moment. Perhaps this sequence will be fine for Christian audiences,
but for unsympathetic viewers the film wastes some of the good will built up
during Augustine’s Roman career. Such missteps are ultimately forgivable because this is an adaptation, and we can be convinced that Augustine really experienced this transformation from his writings. Still, the filmmakers would have been better off
entrusting the transformation more fully to their actors.
So, on the last analysis, I absolutely recommend this film,
on the strength of the acting, with the caveat that you can expect occasional
deviations into schmaltz. The production design is professional enough to not draw too
much attention to itself, although people who are sticklers for historical
authenticity should ask other sticklers, not me. Most importantly, the “restless” heart of the story is
preserved. If nothing else, you can now offer reluctant readers of The Confessions the choice to watch the
movie instead. They won’t really get the whole of the book, but they will probably be
more interested in reading it afterwards.
