In this era of superhero reboots, it can either seem like a terrifying prospect or genuine inspiration that Teona Strugar Mitevska imagines Mother Teresa in the same vein in “Mother,” introducing the world’s most famous nun with the back of her habit flowing like a cape in the wind and a rock guitar riff that suggests she’s capable of knocking a planet off its axis. However, it turns out to be much more the latter as Mitevska creates an origin story for the future Nobel Prize winner as muscular as those that come from the comic books, yet suited well to the present times not only as it applies to popular tastes, but in speaking to a culture where few are compelled to continue doing good deeds when the results aren’t evident that any progress is made.
With a steely Noomi Rapace perfectly cast in the lead role, the film unfolds in the week leading up to Mother Teresa’s departure from the school she began in the slums of Calcutta in which her faith in a number of different things is tested as she awaits word on whether she’ll get the green light to start her own order, which hadn’t been done by any other woman. It is clear that Mother Teresa’s ambitions are not for herself, but nonetheless the wait to see if she will be allowed to attempt to pull off her loftier ideas when it comes to uplifting the poor is getting on her nerves and there aren’t obvious rewards in the people she takes care of as she deals with unruly children and treats wounds of those she knows whose condition will get worse whether or not she tends to them. She has a temper, which she’s more likely to take out on the dough she bakes to give to the hungry, but Mitevska and co-writers Goce Smilevski and Elma Tataragić also avoid portraying her as a saint in her practicality, willing to have sharp elbows when the moment calls for it as she tends to the group of nuns she leads and navigates the leadership of the church that she doesn’t necessarily agree with.
If this Mother Teresa has a crisis of faith, it doesn’t involve God, but rather her belief in Agnieszka (Sophia Hoeks), the novitiate she intends to take over the school in her stead, but her best laid plans are upended by Agnieszka having some news of her own to share, shaking her confidence in her own judgment and leading her to question everything else. Although Mitevska is said to have conducted interviews with all the living members of Mother Teresa’s former monastery that she could find and transcribed some conversations verbatim, it is clear she isn’t interested in some dry historical account, not only injecting rock music into the mix but avoiding any stodgy cinematography that would suggest a refined period piece, often keeping the camera close to its main character as she actively engages various members of the church to ensure her own vision for the future goes ahead as planned and pulling out for a number of exquisite shots that reflect the larger institutions has to navigate with sensitivity, whether it’s bureaucracy or the religion itself.
Rapace takes full advantage of one of her juiciest roles since her breakout turn in “The Millennium Trilogy,” perhaps not donning leather and a nose ring as Lisbeth Salander would, but tapping into that punk spirit once more where rebellion stemmed from the idea that the world could be a better place. “Mother” disputes the notion that anyone is a saint when benevolent acts are seen as less an act of a divine hand than human calculation, but by removing any pedestal from Mother Teresa, it dares to suggest that everyone has the capacity to have her compassion as well as the ability to act on it.
“Mother” will screen again at the Venice Film Festival on August 27th at 10 pm at the PalaBiennale and August 28th at 9 pm at the Astra 1 and 9:30 pm at the Astra 2.