CATHOLIC MISSION

HARDSHIP FOR NEW ARRIVALS DURING EARLY YEARS IN NEW YORK CITY

by PETER THOMAS BUSCH

Everyone knows about the glory stories of how America welcomed immigrants from the old world at Elise Island in New York City.

Director Alejandro Monteverde tells the darker version of that story by shining God’s light on the lives of the children living in the streets after losing their parents to the hard life of places like the Five Points.

Cabrini (2024) stars Cristiana Dell’Anna as Catholic missionary Francesca Cabrini who set out from Rome to establish an orphanage for the lost boys and girls of Italy in 1889.

Cabrini is a bit stunned at first by the impoverished conditions where disease festered and crime ruled the streets.

The lights are dull and dark like the light from the candles and lanterns people had to help find their way at the time.

The characters move from the light into the darkness and then back into the light as a metaphor of the life God made for people, giving them free will and equal portions of chaos and goodness to find.

The answer seems so obvious now that Cabrini begins to show the church what to do and how to do it.

Giancarlo Giannini plays Pope Leo XII who must consent to the first woman foreign mission, before Cabrini can embark on the journey and build an empire of hope around the world.

The idea is inspirational enough, but Dell’Anna shows how Cabrini mustered the motivation to make it happen.

John Lithgow has a few scenes as Mayor Gould, while David Morse plays New York Archbishop Corrigan. The Archbishop is in charge of the church in New York, but the Pope in Rome has the final say. Cabrini would have to go to the Pope on occasion to overrule the Archbishop.

The camera eventually captures the Mayor in a scene or two, because behind the scenes Italians are not yet appreciated in New York City, particularly high minded Italian women.

Federico Ielapi plays the orphan boy, Paolo. And Romana Maggiora Verganno plays the prostitute, Vittoria.

Everyone must take care of the pimp in Five Points before real progress can be made on the New York City mission.

Not soon after Cabrini arrives, she finds an underground city of orphaned children living in the sewers below the streets. But the task of helping the poor is not as easy as one might expect, because of the sexism and bigotry among the establishment.

Monteverde paints the story with his camera, creating several picture perfect low light portraits. The director even has a flourishing by compressing time and space, such as when a horse drawn carriage turns into the scene and when the construction of a hospital just gets underway.

Overall, the camera moves through the light and shadows, and frequently shifts through the spirit world, with psychotropic flashbacks to emphasis just how difficult the task has become.

The narrative is not all about the time and space continuum. The film’s direction detours into more than a few moments of hard work, like the bucket brigade of children passing water up from the Hudson River to a dry well near the orphanage that had previously been occupied by Jesuit Priests.

Cabrini also encounters bigotry and sabotage. But everyone becomes a bit inspiring as the uplifting stories of hope become realized.