Chiara

“Women have never been allowed the privilege of poverty,” Chiara (known to English speakers as Saint Clare of Assisi) is told mid-way through this film. If that sounds absurd, it might help to reflect for a moment on what poverty means, something which writer/director Susanna Nicchiarelli does at length in this vivid meditation on her life. The eldest daughter of Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso, Chiara, whom we see running away from home in the film’s opening scene, would have led a highly restricted life concerned primarily with arranged marriage and reproduction. To give up her possessions was to liberate herself from the worst of this. To be poor was, further, to live without the protections associated with property or stone walls, to entrust her survival to God or the goodwill of people around her. It was to evidence that, in spite of being a woman, she could be sufficient in herself.

Born in 1194, and often overshadowed today by tales of her cousin Francesco (Saint Francis), Chiara was a revolutionary figure in her time: a pioneer, within the Judeo-Christian tradition, of the idea that women could be equal to men. That she was so far ahead of her time makes it difficult to portray her today without seeming anachronistic, especially in light of how little most people know about that particular period in history. Perhaps in acknowledgement of this, Nicchiarelli forgoes a classic dramatic structure, seeding the film with elements which reflect the story telling approaches of the time. There are vivid dream sequences in which Chiara imagines herself wearing a halo, musical numbers with period appropriate instrumentation, and a chapter-based structure which gives the impression that we are wending our way through a chronicle rather than simply taking in a life.

A nunnery provides Chiara with a temporary refuge. Cutting off her hair makes her practically unmarriageable and confirms that she has chosen a religious life; it also makes her look much more like a modern woman. Throughout, Nicchiarelli captures the sense of Chiara and Francesco as activists with a progressive vision for society, far from the conservative image which many outsiders have of the Church. Star Margherita Mazzucco gives Clare an extraordinary quality of self-possession, together with a serene but altogether assured gaze which helps her to get her way. The nunnery functions like the women’s refuges of today. The Franciscan community in which she first abides resembles a hippy colony, full of humour and enthusiastic intellectual exchange, though this is not permitted to endure for long. Authorities within the Church do not like the idea of women mixing freely with men, and there are little hints that Francesco (Andrea Carpenzano), once an enthusiastic defender of the idea, gets cold feet because he finds himself falling in love with Chiara.

The two are at odds for much of the film. He is challenging the old order, but she is more radical, determined to hold him to account. Will he practice what he preaches? She will not accept the sacrifice of women’s freedoms in the pursuit of broader agendas. Women are the origin of sin, who tempt men to sin with their flesh, says the local Cardianal, Ugolino (Luigi Lo Cascio). “We all die because of women.” Such are the cornerstones of Western misogyny. “They want us to wither like the fig tree in the Gospels!” she protests, beating her fists against a pillar showing us the physicality which must be still more deeply repressed when even speech is seen as a threat.

Ugolino, who would go on to become Pope Gregory IX, is depicted stuffing his face with food at a banquet for one, a form of satire as popular in the art of the day as it is now. Although there are three saints in the film alongside him, everybody is depicted as very human, flawed, emotional, capable of humour. Some of Clare’s miracles are woven into the story, yet their divine nature isn’t always easy to ascertain. Her early rescue of Agnes seems clearly supernatural in some way; her survival when a heavy door falls on her could be sheer luck; when she eases the fever of a peasant woman’s child by taking him into a warm hall, Francesco cautions her not to start healing the sick, or their limited resources will soon be overwhelmed. When a colleague starts crying out that it’s a miracle after she removes a stone which a boy has shoved up his nose, she loses her temper. If God is at work here, He has limited patience for fools.

Other issues of the time are addressed in passing, and often have present day relevance. Ugolino frets over the behaviour of young people like the conservative old men of every age. An older sister reminds those with her to cover their mouths and noses before working with infected people. Some issues remind us that progress has been made. There is ongoing hushed debate about the need to be able to share the Bible directly with the people, and the difficulty presented by the idea that it would be sinful to translate it – even verbally – into the vernacular.

Mazzucco does not look much like the images we have of Chiara – though representative portraiture was still in its infancy – but she does manage to capture some of their expressions perfectly, and seems to use this as a foundation for developing a character who would stand out in any age. It seems appropriate that, at long last, the Patron Saint of television should be celebrated in film, and this really feels like a celebration of her struggle, of her values, rather than a bland hagiography. It ends with her miracle of multiplication of loaves, which, in context, takes on additional meaning. Her order may not have all the freedom they have sought, yet here they stand, in spite of all the male authority levelled against them, short haired and comfortably dressed, out in the sunshine. They have taken a great symbolic leap, and in spite of prophecies of doom, they are successfully sustaining themselves. All they needed to get there was faith.

Chiara screened in Venice and features in the From Venice To London line-up.