Portrait of the artistas a holy man

Based on a 50-year-old play by Karol Wojtyla, a new movie about St. Brother Albert, ‘brother of our God’ and hero of our Pope, is being called an ‘encyclical in pictures’

By Jonathan Luxmoore

But what about being the first pope in history to author a commercial screenplay? "Brother of Our God," a new movie directed by renowned Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi, is based on the 1949 stage play penned by Karol Wojtyla.

The film has been showing in Poland since its premiere during the Pope’s June visit there, and the Pontiff himself saw it last month at a special screening at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence.

Zanussi has dubbed "Brother of Our God" an "encyclical in pictures," saying it is faithful to Wojtyla’s script. But the film is anything but dogmatic. Rather, it’s an intensely spiritual drama about a 19th-century aristocrat and artist who sacrifices his fortune and career to serve and live among the poor.

"Brother of Our God" tells the story of one of the Pope’s personal heroes, Adam Chmielowski, better known as St. Brother Albert (1845-1916), whom Pope John Paul himself canonized.

As is well-known, before becoming a priest, Wojtyla wrote and directed a number of plays in his native land. Zanussi has long had a fascination with these early works.

Last year, the filmmaker went to the Vatican and received the Pope’s blessing to adapt "Brother of Our God" into a movie. The film made its Italian debut at the Venice Film Festival in late August, where it was well received.

Vatican Radio reported that the Pope, after watching the entire two-hour movie in English with Italian subtitles, marveled with Zanussi about how long ago the play was written and how young he was then.

In the late 1930s, Wojtyla moved to Kraków as a student. Locals there still remembered Brother Albert, the tall, limping figure who used to push his alms cart through the muddy streets many years earlier.

Born into nobility on the outskirts of Kraków, Chmielowski (pronounced

H-mee-el-ovskee) become well-known among that city’s high society as a promising painter.

But slowly overtaken by the desire to dedicate his talents to God’s glory, Chmielowski began to paint subjects with a religious theme. One of his most famous works, of Christ before Pontius Pilot, was titled "Ecce Homo" ("Behold the Man"), and painting it pushed Chmielowski further into a spiritual metamorphose.

Finally, at the peak of his artistic career, he gave up painting and decided to devote all his energies to the poor, living among them and accepting a beggar’s life, much like St. Francis of Assisi.

In 1887, he clothed himself in a grey habit and took the name Brother Albert. The following year he professed religious vows and founded the Brothers of the Third Order of St. Francis Servants of the Poor (the Albertines). In 1891, he founded a similar congregation of Albertine sisters.

Brother Albert, who some consider the 20th-century Polish St. Francis, organized shelters, soup kitchens and other institutions for the poor and needy, and his congregations to this day continue his mission in Poland, Italy, Argentina and the United States.

Brother Albert died on Christmas Day during World War I. Wojtyla wrote his play a decade later, when Poland’s communists claimed to be solving the problems of poverty and injustice by suppressing "bourgeois democracy."

Wojtyla’s play shows how Chmielowski — though he was deeply concerned by the plight of the poor — had rejected Marxist methods of alleviating their suffering and had chosen another way.

But it also reveals that Brother Albert wrestled with his conscience and had been tempted by talk of revolution.

When Pope John Paul canonized him on Nov. 12, 1989, Eastern Europe was finally revolting against communism.

In "Brother of Our God," Chmielowski (played by American actor Scott Wilson of "G.I. Jane" fame) is changed totally by a chance experience one night when he accidentally stumbles into a poorhouse in one of Kraków’s back streets.

Shocked by what he sees and hears, he realizes he must try to help. But his liberal artist friends discourage him. Max — a character based on Maximilian Gierzynski, who studied art with Chmielowski in Munich — advises him to close his eyes and stick to his painting.

But Chmielowski rejects his friend’s advice. "Society doesn’t know what it carries within it — it’s like a sick organism," he said. "We are all hiding. We escape to our little islands of luxury, to so-called social structures where we feel secure. But no, this is a big lie. This ‘security’ blinds the eyes and plugs up the ears. And in the end, it will shatter."

Instead, he is drawn to another shadowy character, who tells him he has a duty to act: poverty and injustice must be fought against. The character, left nameless in the film, personifies Europe’s revolutionary movements. He looks and sounds like Vladimir Lenin — with good reason.

The mastermind of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 (a year after Brother Albert died) almost certainly met the holy man while staying in Kraków in 1912-14. A photograph hanging in one of the Albertine order’s houses shows him listening attentively while the future saint speaks.

In the film, Chmielowski is tempted by the figure’s seductive, Russian-accented words. "Your friends want at any price to reduce your anger to an outburst of artistic genius," the revolutionary lectures him. "But your anger is what matters. The masses feel a great, boundless anger, too. And the outburst of this just anger is a vision far more splendid than any vision a painter may have."

But in the end, Chmielowski parts company with the revolutionary, for he fuels demands that can’t be satisfied. "There’s a great mass of people that wants to have, that simply wants to take — but what will you do if it needs more?" Chmielowski asks him.

"Man’s poverty is deeper than all the resources and goods we’re talking about. Here, anger is no good; here, charity is essential."

Yet the revolutionary is far from charitable, and he even rebukes Chmielowski for his kindness to the poor: it merely calms and appeases their anger, he claims. "Ah, charity! A coin here, a coin there — for the right to secure the possession of the millions invested in banks, forests, lands, bonds, shares, while others toil animal-like, 10, 12, 16 hours a day for a miserable wage, for less than the right to live, for the hope of consolation up above!"

Eventually, Chmielowski realizes in a fit of madness that all thoughts and calculations are worthless. He can only approach true Christian love by liberating himself from the "tyranny of intelligence."

In the film’s denouement, fist-waving workers hoist red flags and take to the streets. The news is brought to Brother Albert by his followers in the poorhouse.

"I’ve known about this for a long time," he responds. "It had to come about, this anger, this great just anger. That anger must erupt because it is great. And it will last because it is just. I know for certain, though, that I have chosen a greater freedom."

The film ends with Wilson reading from the Pope’s homily at Brother Albert’s canonization: "Ownership is one of the rights of the human person. But solidarity is more than sympathy or superficial sentiment caused by the evil which touches so many. On the contrary, it means a permanent will to become involved for the common good — for the good of all, because we are all truly responsible for all."

According to Zanussi, "Brother of Our God" shows that "Wojtyla was already intellectually mature as a writer in his late 20s. It shows him as someone with a deep understanding of revolution, and of when and how people justify it. The script contains a clear warning to Christians: If we do not exercise love, hatred will take over."

Zanussi is clear about the film’s message. "It speaks of charity which goes beyond justice. It also reminds us that no system — from communism to capitalism — is perfect, and that we shouldn’t politicize religion by trying to endorse one system over another," he told Our Sunday Visitor.

"Ever since the French Revolution, demagogues have tried to lure people into thinking paradise can be built on Earth. But this was never believed before, and it shouldn’t be believed in the future. The whole Judeo-Christian tradition is based on the principle of original sin — that every system will be imperfect, since we ourselves are imperfect."

Could the radicalism of "Brother of Our God" affect the way Pope John Paul is viewed?

"Certainly the convictions presented in this film will come as a surprise to those who know the Pope from reports in the Western press, which has generally tried to fit him into a convenient conservative stereotype," Zanussi said.

"Perhaps it’s because we know him better in Poland that there’s been less surprise here. If the Pope needs a label at all, he is certainly leftist rather than rightist. But if someone lives by the Ten Commandments, how can he be labeled at all?"

However it’s interpreted, "Brother of Our God" tells us something about the Pope, who also gave up his art as a young man and devoted himself to the Divine Artist. It’s a film that shouldn’t be missed.

Luxmoore writes from Warsaw, Poland. As of press time, no U.S. distributor had been named for "Brother of Our God"

Copyright Our Sunday Visitor, 1997; from the 10-19-97 edition

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