Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
Written and directed by Tomás Gómez Bustillo
Starring Monica Villa, Horacio Anibal Marassi
Unrated
Runtime: 85 minutes
Now playing in select theaters

by Jo Rempel, Staff Writer

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, the debut feature from Argentinian director Tomás Gómez Bustillo, is something of an ornery hagiography, lying at the exact intersection between serenity and irritability. The film’s lead is the saint in question: Rita (Monica Villa), the elderly caretaker of the Santa Rita chapel in Santa Rita, Argentina. Rita might be the only woman in town to consider herself so sanctimoniously, but these things take time. For now, it’s her against the world.

Santa Rita is a small town, one which by its marked emptiness has surely seen livelier days. The chapel will always have dust to clear and pues to sanitize, curretly to service the needs of Rita, the priest, and a small of devoted women. The floor is weathered, an accumulation of time and friction. Light falls through, onto the font, and we are left with the obstinance of beauty. Rita’s husband, Norberto (Horacio Anibal Marassi) works the night shift at a local bar, also empty. At a reserved, static distance, these tableaus show the richness of their locations by implication: a series of postcards, which while in their being produced and shown to us must be of historical and cultural depth, are here to be images and nothing more.

We first see Rita from behind, praying in the front row, the midday sun beaming down, covering her and the altar alike. Her friends gossip from offscreen, keeping themselves from photobombing while remarking on how hard she tries to be beautiful. Or is it just how the light happens to hit her? Looking through the director’s curatorial gaze, there is no meaningful difference between these two hypotheses. There is no happenstance here: or at least that’s the nagging horror to modern life. Norberto has gotten the yellow ponchos out so the two can visit the waterfalls again, But Rita insists that nothing has changed since their honeymoon. It’s still the same waterfall. Looking out from the chapel storage room he wants her to see the two pairs of pants dancing on the line and she can hardly believe why he’d want her to gaze out at the wind.

It’s in this store room that Rita finds what might be the one last true miracle: a statue of the eponymous Santa Rita, long since lost, famously so. Rediscovering the statue would revive the town, and more importantly, they would orient themselves towards the new flesh and blood Santa Rita.

Rita keeps the statue in her shed in preparation for her big reveal. Before the public swarms, she can have something clandestine. She tells the priest and he thinks it might be a miracle. But then, as Rita preens her miracle, this sullen nun is carrying the wrong emblem. Could Santa Rita hold a crown of thorns instead of a cross? “Santa Rita would NEVER carry a crown of thorns,” replies Google. Further searching as to how one knows if a miracle has occurred merits this from the condescending internet: “If you have to ask, it isn’t a miracle.” Nevertheless, Rita sees it fit to take matters into her own hands and wrest that crown from her saint’s grip with a saw: God grant me the serenity to accept that which I cannot change, the courage to change that which I can…

And is Rita wise enough to know the difference? Somehow, I cannot say that there is anything cynical about her. She is selfish to be sure, yet her faith that miracles are still supposed to happen like this, or happen at all, puts her out of step with her contemporaries. The statue must be altered so that it may be closer to the truth—an ancient tradition that goes beyond subjectivity. When Rita looks back in scorn at a campfire hymn, acoustic chords and a chorus about Jesus’ love for which the priest demands an encore, the possibility of jealousy over the priest’s affection is mixed with disgust that he could let religion get so vapid. She is against everyone, then: against the priest; against the women who might be her friends if they weren’t busy showing off their vacations and photogenie on Facebook; even against Norberto, who spends all his time on that battered guitar when there are serious things to be minding.

Tossing Facebook into a pastoral setting makes it clear that no place is as pure as it might seem. Just another church—another method of control. Little is freeing in Wandering Saint, especially not the white flowers Rita buys to complete the ceremony, which stuff her car to the brim. This is the one time we see her smile, having put herself in financial straits, secure that miracles are here to stay.

Rita dies on her way home; she looks down as her car sinks into the swamp. The majority of the film is spent following her ghost. As it turns out, the land of the living is a middle-management purgatory, where a pious death merits you either an express or executive ascension. Executive comes with that coveted sainthood, including infinite miracles and time travel, but takes a little longer to kick in. Ghosts left in their waiting period may wander around, but they must return to their place of death when their time is up; if still wandering, their spirit will be attached to a nearby object. In a karmic fate for those whose love the world too much, they will be trapped in it. One might become a faulty lightbulb, or a specific breeze. What lingers, as it thurms out, are the bothersome and insistent aspects of daily life. Day has turned to night, and the mystery of Rita has receded to that of the world around her.

Hypnotic in its stillness, Wandering Saint sees a world heavy with history, where miracles really do happen. How many saints are stirring the pot by time traveling to their hearts’ content? But never mind the weight of the world. These miracles surrounding us are for the light of heart.