Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

pvlcko Ed Harris and Anne Heche display fabulous performances in The Third Miracle, and this, instead of the plot and storyline, made the movie. What the film and possibly Catholic dogmatics err on is their failure to acknowledge the very scriptural definition of "faith" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith should not at all be based on signs and miracles, even though Jesus and God often employed visible miracles. However, miracles are employed not to bring faith, but to authenticate divinity before unbelievers. Faith only comes from hearing God's Word, sharing in the Eucarist and baptism. The film fails grossly in separating the true meaning of faith and miracles.Aside from erroneous Christian dogmatics, the film and research team failed to get their facts straight on the events that occurred in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia in 1944. Banska Bystrica was controlled only by the Slovak Army throughout 1944. The German Army only occupied Banska Bystrica in October 1944 after they crushed the Slovak National Uprising whose headquarters was in Banska Bystrica. The German Air Force bombed Banska Bystrica between September and October 1944. The Americans never bombed Banska Bystrica in 1944. In fact, the Americans flew in to an airport just south of Banska Bystrica (Tri Duby) several B-17 fortresses with war matériel in support of the insurgent Slovak Army during the Slovak National Uprising in September and October 1944. On August 20, 1944, the 15th USAF flew bombing missions over Banska Bystrica to bomb an oil refinery at Dubová just 20 km NE of Banska Bystrica, but never dropped bombs on Banska Bystrica. (See http://www.muzeumsnp.sk/WWW-USA-nov%E1/USA-GB-oprava.htm for greater detail.) Banska Bystrica was finally liberated from Nazi control in March 1945, and if there was any bombing of Banska Bystrica in 1945, it was performed by the Soviet Air Force.

childintime-1 I am not well qualified to comment on this movie from any technical or artistic perspective. However, it has now become my favourite movie for one reason. As a man of faith, I have had to endure years of Hollywood trivializing or sensationalizing most aspects of faith and religion. It seems to be the one subject with which they can find no degree of comfort or reconciliation. The Third Miracle, however, is a luminous study in how several characters learn to deal with their own faith, and yet it never tries to advocate any of those as right or wrong. It even avoids trying to be too specific about just how the struggle is resolved for each person. In the end there is a sense that they are all just a little further down the road. And that is, to me, exactly what faith is all about.It wouldn't matter if the "religion" involved were something other than Christian (spedifically Catholic). This could have been a story about Jews, Baha'is, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, or Zoroastrians. Within the context of each religion is the matter of how each believer learns and lives his faith. It is a personal struggle, a mystical relationship that draws each toward his Creator. The events portrayed in the film may seem to some to be fantastic or surreal, but faith is also each of those. Miracles are intended for those who witness them, and they are simply what happens when a higher law than the one we thought immutable comes into play. One can't prove a miracle to another any more than the other can disprove it.The two most interesting characters are those portrayed by Ed Harris and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Each has had profound experiences with both faith and religion, and come to starkly differing conclusions. And yet each man's dedication to his convictions is compelling. Harris' scene in the confessional booth is a heart-wrenching example of how impotent one can feel when in moments of doubt. Mueller-Stahl later gives a chilling demonstration of the intolerance that can arise when one denies the promptings of the spirit: "Caprice of God! I would say it to His face if He were here now!"As for the rest of the movie, I will leave that to those who write in very clever and articulate language about character and plot development, cinematography, and such. I will say that I found no serious flaws in it, from the small amount I have learned of such things from reading many such reviews. I'm not sure why such illusory fare as Pulp Fiction becomes legendary, while a faithful rendering of human realities like The Third Miracle becomes a marginalized curiosity. Do we derive more inspiration from caricatures than from characterizations?

terribracy Warning: possible spoilers.Faith, doubt and miracles are the subjects tackled in The Third Miracle written by John Romano and based on the novel by Richard Vetere. Directed by Agnieszka Holland and starring two-time Academy Award nominee Ed Harris, this 2003 film opens in a flophouse in the late 1970's. Father Frank Shore (Harris), a priest who is faltering in his faith and who has stepped away from the church, eats his meals in soup kitchens, and does what he can to help those less fortunate with whom he lives. A professional postulator ( a person who investigates claims of sainthood) Father Frank is being summoned back to authenticate the miracles of a recently deceased immigrant woman named Helen O'Regan (Barbara Sukowa) who spent her last years living in a convent as a layperson. Loved by all, she is credited with healing a young girl, and every November (the month she died) the statue weeps blood. Known as "the miracle killer" it was just such an assignment that "destroyed the faith of an entire community," and has caused his own crisis of faith. Doubt may be healthy for a layperson, but in a priest it is a certain sign of apostasy according to Archbishop Werner (Armin Muellar-Stahl) who is sent by Rome to undermine his findings in front of a church tribunal. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church is not well portrayed in this film. The Archbishop's rigid determination that no saint could possibly came out of America, especially one as "ordinary" as wife and mother Helen O'Regan, counterbalances the Bishop who talks politics over golf, spends long afternoons being massaged and mud-packed, and invites colleagues to high-profile gatherings based solely on their ability to converse wittily over cocktails. Even the poor Chicago parish where the possible-saint-to-be lived is tarnished, as the local priest proudly displays rows of scarlet electric pushbutton candles for parishioners to light when they offer a prayer. Doubt and cynicism live side-by-side in Father Frank, and neither this, nor his meeting with O'Regan's feisty, atheist daughter Roxanna (Anne Heche) surprises him. Angry that the mother who abandoned her for the church is even being considered for sainthood, Roxanna invites the priest to dance on her mother's grave in an odd, yet surprisingly sexual scene. Chemistry notwithstanding, the priest is saved from further faltering by a rainy night miracle to which he is a firsthand witness. Reclaiming his collar along with his faith, he returns to the church and argues his case before the tribunal. Several other twists and turns add to the courtroom-like suspense-some we see coming and others we do not-and contribute to an enjoyable two hours. The only question that remains is: What exactly is the third miracle to which the title points? Two are arguably attributed to the candidate for sainthood, but what of the third? On the face of it, it may simply be Father Frank's return to faith, but I would argue that the miracle is ours. Rather than calling us to believe the miracles of this "saint of the people who live in the ordinary world," I suggest it calls us to look for the miracles in our own ordinary lives. In the last scene of the movie we see the first two miracles: the restoration of Father Frank Shore and the joyous motherhood of Roxanna. The third miracle is not named because it can't be named; it is different for us all. It exists in the ordinariness of our lives, and it is up to us to find it.

Roland E. Zwick `The Third Miracle' tackles much of the same subject matter as 1999's `Stigmata' but manages to do so without reducing it to the level of horror movie absurdity. The stories of both movies revolve around a doubting, questioning priest whose job it is to investigate and either certify or debunk purported instances of divine intervention. However, `The Third Miracle,' because it treats the material within the context of a serious drama, emerges as by far the more interesting of the two films. Ed Harris, in a solid performance, stars as the man whose job it is to verify these ostensible miracles but who, like most movie priests it seems, has come to question his faith and to doubt his own worthiness to even carry out the task. Anne Heche delivers her customary fine performance as the cynical daughter of the woman whose potential candidacy for canonization sets the plot in motion. Indeed, the film is at its most intriguing when it allows us to get a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes nuts-and-bolts machinations that the church uses in determining the viability of sainthood. We watch as the Catholic hierarchy treads the fine line between faith in supernatural intervention and the more worldly concerns of pragmatic politics. We see the petty jealousies, character attacks and power struggles that reduce even the most ethereal of ventures to the level of basic human frailty. In many ways, this broader conflict reflects the one which rages on a more intimate, personal level within the tortured psyche of Harris' character himself. It is his internal struggle between doubt and faith, between the physical and the spiritual, between strength and weakness that manages to keep the many strands of the plot together even when the film, at times, verges a bit on the banal and the tedious. Happily, too, the film does not succumb to the fashionable secular cynicism that is all too common in films today. `The Third Miracle' manages to explore the many-sided complexity of this issue without trashing the spiritual nature of the topic in the process. `The Third Miracle' is not by any stretch a great film, but it succeeds in exploring a tricky subject without insulting the intelligence of the audience along the way. After `Stigmata,' we offer our most humble thanks for that.