St. Teresa of Avila

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  September 7, 2008

  jfvirey

  Released on DVD in Spain under the title "Teresa de Jesus", "St. Teresa of Avila" is an eight-hour TV series that chronicles the life of the greatest woman in Spanish history, from the age of 24 to her death at 67, as interpreted by prolific Spanish actress Concha Velasco, then a...( read more)ged 44. In such biographical mini-series, the aging of the main character is a problem that is often awkwardly handled (whether they change actors or use make-up), but I didn't find Velasco ridiculous looking either twenty years younger or older than she really was; this is probably a tribute to her acting skills, for which she received no less than three awards.
  
  "Teresa de Jesus" is a rare film. First, because it is the portrait of a genuinely admirable person, which is not that frequent in a culture that prefers to spend its budget on biopics of criminals, gangsters, madmen and generally evil, corrupt or degenerate individuals (among which I am including quite a few idols of the left made admirable only by sheer spin.) And second, because even when they actually portray good people, our moviemakers tend either to present them as frauds, or to miss the point altogether by fantasizing about them rather than showing them as they were- using them as vehicles for a totally different agendas, or carefully editing their lives to create a completely false perspective on what they truly were about (the recent "Teresa, el cuerpo de Cristo" seems to be just that.)
  
  One way in which the series satisfied me was, paradoxically, by frustrating me. Even though I feared some cheap, turgid drama shot in video by an amateurish director (which it definitely isn't; it was shot in 16mm and the direction is quite competent), what I was hoping for was a baroque film with long psychedelic depictions of mystical visions- and this is exactly what I didn't get. Only one brief vision is actually shown: there are no apparitions of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Angels, the saints, or whatever Teresa may have seen in her ecstasies. In fact, both the film and Teresa herself take a stand against the kind of showy holiness that attracted the "pious" nobility of that era, and are intent to show that genuine holiness consists in a right will, rather than in anything that might require the talents of Industrial Light and Magic to be depicted on screen.
  
  The result is that the life that is portrayed here is not blatantly supernatural (though at least two miracles are shown) but on the contrary, very down to earth, and consisting mostly of the frustration of having to deal with all the hurdles of ordinary life, from the illnesses that ail us to all the human wills that are bent on contradicting our own. You want angels and mysticism, and you get a woman of action, founding monastery after monastery, reforming a very reluctant carmelite order, and constantly involved in tiresome squabbles brought about by the bad faith, the vanity, and the general sinfulness of people around her.
  
  It is striking that the very best movies about saints that I know of (Delannoy's two films about Bernadette and Rivette's Jeanne la Pucelle, in addition to this one) share this no-nonsense, unpretentious and slightly amused outlook on life, and do not go for theatricals or special effects. I don't know if it has to do with my own taste, or with what holiness is really about.
  
  I really recommend this series. It is educational, edifying and respectful of its subject. My only regret is that the DVD does not offer any supplements such as maps, a chronology and biographical notes that might help the uninformed viewer. So you will have to do your own research if you are a bit lost in La Mancha.

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