timepiececlock

I spent much of the early evening eating pizza and watching the 1963 black & white film Lilies of the Field, a movie my mother ordered off of Netflix.com. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like it-- I figured anything with a name like that + a couple of Academy Awards must be awfully depressing and tragic. Also I knew there were nuns in the film, and my general dislike of organized religion made me skeptical.

To my surprise and delight, it was a charming movie. It starts off with a young black Southern Baptist who works as a laborer, and he stops at a small house in rural Arizona to borrow water to cool his car. Populating the house are five Catholic nuns who escaped from Eastern Germany and came all the way to Arizona-- only the leader of which speaks passable (if confusing) English. The Mother Maria (quite a clever and domineering woman, but devout) convinces Mr. Smith (Sydney Poitier), to fix their roof, however, doesn't mention that they have absolutely no money on them. She convinces him to stay the night, and pretty soon she's got him convinced to build them a chapel. Soon the local Latino community gets involved, and you have a delightful look at the blending of three cultures-- the Latinos and the nuns sharing their Catholic faith, and Mr. Smith and the Latinos sharing the fact that they aren't German nuns. Watching the nuns try to talk to the Arizona Latino men in English was quite amusing (though frustrating on both sides.)

There's some lessons about faith -- Mother Maria's constant assurance that "everything will be fine" is the answer to every problem, and most of the people in the film are religious (even Mr. Smith, the protagonist.) However, it's the characters that really shine, not the moral lesson. It's all a big contest of wills between Mr. Smith (who's too nice to turn away from a bunch of nuns in poverty), and Mother Maria (who has a godly answer to every point of argument Smith makes.) This movie has considerable humor, however, I'm a little heistant to call it comedy-- it's more "family comedy," the humor is not slapstick at all. However, I think a kid would also miss a lot of the subtlety in character interaction-- which is where the strongest humor of the film is-- so maybe family's the wrong word. Anyway, it's a sweet movie. I can see why Sydney Pointier got his oscar for it.

Favorite quote, spoken by the wives of the Latino men who helped lay bricks for the chapel, and Mother Maria, as they watch the men celebrating:

Mother Maria: **grumbles in German**
Wife #1: **grumbles in Spanish**
Wife #2: **resignedly** They build a house, they build a barn... always a fiesta.
Mother Maria: **grumbles** Fiesta! In my chapel!