In a series of simple and joyous vignettes, director Roberto Rossellini and co-writer Federico Fellini lovingly convey the universal teachings of the People’s Saint: humility, compassion, faith, and sacrifice. Gorgeously photographed to evoke the medieval paintings of Saint Francis’s time, and cast with monks from the Nocera Inferiore Monastery, The Flowers of St. Francis is a timeless and moving portrait of the search for spiritual enlightenment.
Rossellini's buoyant 1950 masterpiece is a glorious hallucination of perfect harmony between man and nature.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Reader,
25 Apr 2001
fresh:
Thanks to the simplicity of its filming and the sympathetic musical score Renzo Rossellini has affixed, it sends one forth from the theatre feling kindlier towards his fellow man.