In the 1996 British comedy-drama Secrets & Lies, Hortense, a young middle-class black woman in London, having lost both of her adoptive parents, decides to seek out her biological mother - who turns out to be a working-class white woman named Cynthia.

Director Mike Leigh is known for collaborating in depth with his actors to create vivid, deeply realized characters and performances. Secrets & Lies is an outstanding specimen of a lost genre: a kitchen-sink drama that relies entirely on its rich humanity to keep us watching. Andrew Petiprin joins Criteria to discuss the movie.

Links

Spe Salvi Institute https://www.spesalviinstitute.com/

Article about the displacement of Cockneys, "Indigenous London" https://firstthings.com/indigenous-london/

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Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com

James, Thomas, and Nathan Douglas conclude their journey through Terrence Malick's filmography (thus far) with a discussion of the film that introduced him to many Catholics: A Hidden Life, about the Austrian martyr Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, who was killed for refusing to swear loyalty to Hitler. Coming after Malick's avant-garde phase of the Weightless Trilogy, A Hidden Life is a more conventional narrative but retains much of the stylistic and formal development of his past few films.

Links

Original episode on A Hidden Life https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-58-hidden-life-film-review-w-james-majewski/

New Polity podcast on Bl. Franz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD04XvxBLkE

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Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com

Anthony D'Ambrosio directed, wrote, and produced the outstanding new film Triumph of the Heart about St. Maximilian Kolbe. In this inspiring interview, he discusses the difficult path he and his team charted to produce this independent film with a low budget, high artistic standards, and deep Catholic spirituality.

Film is an expensive medium. Since a high budget requires one to calculate mainstream appeal in order to make one's money back, a low budget can leave more room for artistic and spiritual integrity. Though the production faced many hardships, it was buoyed up by the hope that the project could break a new path for other Catholic filmmakers to follow.

Triumph of the Heart is available to screen at your parish, and will start streaming on its official website November 1.

Links

Show Triumph of the Heart at your parish https://www.triumphoftheheart.com/

Our review of Triumph of the Heart https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/triumph-heart-is-film-worthy-its-subject-st-maximilian-kolbe/

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Music is The Duskwhales, "Take It Back", used with permission. https://theduskwhales.bandcamp.com