Wow, this was stunning, both in photography and in content. Here's a nice, old-fashioned "religious story" you rarely see anymore. The English title goes under "The Miracle Of Marcelino."
It's a simple tale of a group of monks who discover a baby at their monastery doorstep one morning and then raise the boy. They try to find suitable parents for the infant but are unsuccessful. The infant scenes don't run too long because, before you know it, they have fast-forwarded it to when the boy was six years of age....and that's where he stays until the end of the film.
Pablito Calvo as the title character, Marcelino," is excellent. Kudos to cinematographer Heinrich Gartner for beautiful black-and-white photography. The DVD transfer was outstanding, too. The lighting, particularly on faces, is terrific.
Other reviewers here at IMDb, such as Albert Sanchez Moreno, have described the story nicely. I will just add I found it oddly captivating the entire way and very touching and moving in the last 20 minutes or so, after the boy discovers the big statue of Christ and begins communicating with Him. Yeah, I'm sure it looks really far-fetched to almost everyone, especially non-Believers, but I enjoyed and marveled at the end of this film.
I'm not quite sure what to make of the monks in here and why they would "warn" the young boy against going up in the attic, where the statue is located, unless they somehow supernaturally knew what was going to happen.....yet they still should have put their trust in Christ, anyway. Their actions are puzzling at times. There is a real mystery to this story overall, anyway. Not being Catholic, maybe I missed something in the translation. This is a very "Catholic" film but a Christ-believing Protestant as I am can still fully appreciate this story, too, as much as anyone, and I did.
You'll never find this at a rental store but those you are curious, you might want to add it to your queue if you belong to one of those mail-in rental programs. This film was a collaboration of Spanish and Italian filmmakers, I think. There was a color re-make in the early '90s, but I haven't seen it.
It's a film of tender "innocence" like few I've ever seen, which makes it very memorable.
