Lourdes is one of the three most visited shrines in the world, with Fatima and Guadalupe being the other two. A poor young peasant girl sees the Virgin Mary in a grotto and the word spreads throughout France. The authorities made life difficult for Bernadette but she held steadfast in her faith. The film travels between a doubting modern day reporter and his investigation of Bernadette. He discovers a journal written by an ancestor with a day by day account of the story. Miracles are attributed to the spring water and I was impressed by the fine cast and well done sets. EWTN broadcast the three hour movie in two parts and it is well worth your time.
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billcr1228 February 2022
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The negative review is informative, so I'll remove one star in light of that. However, the tensions between the various characters, as well as between science and faith, are depicted very well. I was mesmerized from beginning to end. One can quibble about facts and there is a time for that, but in matters of faith, the main point is that Bernadette didn't lie and the movie reinforces that very well.
There are many people, believers and non-believers, who can't accept Mary's role in Christianity beyond her earthly life but Lourdes, along with the Fatima and Guadalupe appearances, shows that Mary has appeared to ordinary, even simple, people who couldn't have made up their accounts. -
james-leopard12 December 2006Has someone told you this movie is a simple faith story? Right, it's true. And that is its strength. I found it moving and overall well-done. All the interpreters have the right face for their role, and the story, with a few negligible naiveté , is told in a plausible way. The plot develops at three levels: Bernadette's story (a young girl who lives in poverty and ignorance, surprised and frightened by the first apparition, then conquered by the grace and sweetness the Lady shows), and, after the apparitions, her life as a nun; a scientist's, who can't accept a miracle even when it happens to his wife; and a modern one, in which a photographer investigates about Lourdes and its story and runs into his ancestor's diary, bearing witness about his involvement in Bernadette's story and his developing awareness of Bernadette's honesty and his necessity to come to a compromise between science- in which he strongly had believed so far- and faith.
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jean-no13 August 2005(Saint) Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes story is absolutely fascinating : how this poor little girl (her father was in jail) from a lost city in the Pyrenees managed to build the first french place of tourism after Paris ?! Well the movie doesn't say a lot, and the script is obviously written by people who didn't want to stick to the facts and nothing less... A three levels story (Bernadette's Story, a Science man's and, one hundred and fifty years later, his grand-grand-grand son) tries to make us believe that after all, "science doesn't explain everything" and that people who don't believe in miracles have the more irrational faith (they can't accept what they see). The facts are shown as "close to the real story" but it is not true at all. The intervention of JM Charcot is for instance a total anachronism, and not even close to what Charcot wrote in his essay about Lourdes. The acting is OK, the main role has the good face but plays Bernadette in the more candid way possible. Well the photographs of these times and the testimonies from her pals in convent shows she was not only that, she was also a strong temper, with authority, who liked to lead the others for instance. Well, here's what I'd say : the times are not well rendered and they are anachronic (about the science men beliefs for instance), the family's misery is not shown, the "miracles" shown are not the ones that happened (or were considered to) - for instance the first miracle of Lourdes happened to a friend of Bernadette who's arm was out (déboité in french... don't know in English) who putted it in the water and then had her bones put together again... In the movie it is a blind guy who recovers sight even if the medicine see his eye as dead ! The movie is in two parts. The first is bad, the second is bad too, but also terribly boring. Well I won't say it's worth seeing.