Undescribable Perfection

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Excellent adaptation.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

it is one of great movies for memories . or a precious meet with a simple story . because it represents the beautiful adaptation of a novel and useful remind of the importance of small things. it is not real a religious film. it is not exactly a fairy tale against the similarities with one. it is only a touching experience with yourself. its axis - the look of Pablito Calvo. its source - the symbols, the image, the splendid crucifix and the delicate humor. it is not a story about faith or miracle. maybe about motherhood in a special manner. it is not the best example of coherence of precision of details. but only a trip in the essence of life. simple. touching. convincing. one of films who preserve the taste of feelings who seem be forgotten. but this film has the gift to remind the form and the force of each from them. so, enjoy it !

WE WELL RECALL how every good, little Catholic school boy or girl were urged to go and see this one. It did appear that every one of them did in our neighborhood & parish in Chicago. Our neighborhood was called either South Lynne or Ogden Hill and was a segment of the greater community known as West Englewood. The Parish was St. Theodore; a now defunct and otherwise forgotten geopolitical subdivision of the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, located at 62nd Street and Paulina Street.* THE FILM IS basically a pleasant story of an orphaned Italian boy who is adopted and being raised as the ward of a monastery of priests. Although little Marcel (hence the diminutive form of "Marcellino") has been dealt a sad hand in life, he is an example of the direct opposite of what one would expect. Marcellino is a total delight as a little guy, being the epitome of happiness incarnate.WE ARE PRIVEKEDGED to follow the little tyke as he explores the monetary and finds a large, lifelike statue of the Crucified Jesus. In his own, totally child's understanding of things, he brings gifts of bread and wine to the image and miraculously accepts them, coming to life and conversing with the child.MUCH TO THE chagrin of his older, holy men inhabitants of the cloistered digs, he continues this behavior. One day, he tells the living image of the Christ that the two things the boy wishes are "to see my Mother and yours!" He is then immediately taken to his eternal reward; amid both the mourning and celebration of the friars.WHEN WE RE-EVALUATE what we originally saw, some 62 years ago, we find that what we have is a sort of hybrid story. It is somewhere between a Catholic/Christian morality play and a classic Fairy Tale. That's not to say that it is not without its merits. It surely has that; particularly to the children who are being brought up in the Faith.AND THAT IS perhaps the main message of the story; that we should strive t have the Faith of a Child. Didn't Jesus say something about "unless one comes to him with his Faith like a Child...." ONE OBSERVATION THAT we have made is the special effects that bring the crucifix's statue of Jesus to life are very similar to that of the German silent picture, THE GOELEM (1920).THAT'S JUST AN observation and is not intended in any way to be derogatory to MARCELLINO.

It doesn't happens every day to be able to witness such an evil blend of catholic propaganda, hypocrisy, rhetoric, moralism, illness, schizogenic behavioral models, ignorance, superstition, prejudice, psychotic self-isolation and self-lesion-ism. This is of course a "must see".This precious fascist document portrays reality in such a distant way from the daily reality of that age that it can be compared, in some ways, to the propaganda-documentaries about alchool during American prohibitionism... with the difference that people would now laugh at that blatant manipulation of reality because they now achieved some higher consciousness about freedom (at least in their drinking habits) So we can see this movie is still "believed" probably by those who had no/little achievement of consciousness about mythologies and spirituality. Conservative ideologists, religious fanatics, nostalgics enclosed and suspended in their freezed bubble of childhood... they will probably all find it a "good" movie... and this tells us that the movie works, in the end, on people by thematic selection of their mind problems rather than offering an human and universal experience based on our common nature.My hope for a healthy humankind vanishes when I'm thinking at this kind of movies. When I'm thinking at the number of people who claimed to like this movie... I feel like the doom of mankind is going to be much worse than "just" total illness.

January 2006, and we're talking about a film made in 1955! I too saw this movie possibly 50 years ago and have never forgotten it. I tried to get some more information on it in Sydney with our so called movie experts but got nowhere. The internet was not much help either, then last week, lo and behold, I found a DVD in "Parklea Market" Sydney Australia (sort of organised flea market) And it was selling for 5 Australian dollars (perhaps 2.5 Euros). Only one problem the tittle was "The miracle of Marcelino" ... It had to be the same though so I bought it. I could not wait to run it on my DVD player... and there it was "Marcelino Pan y Vino"! Yes try to search for Marcelino pan y vino, chances is you'll get nothing. Of course the reason I'm here is because of my newly acquired knowledge of its English title. I then was a little boy in France and I think the film was in Spanish with french subtitle. I personally think the dubbed version does some damage to the integrity of this beautiful story. I have to be honest here too. I found the movie rather rusty in the light of the ever growing technology in this field and I don't agree that the music is beautiful; it's markedly aged and I don't think I'd like a sound system with this quality. But what a reunion, I had almost given up any hope to see it again. I think My parents took me to watch it in Paris. They were non religious as I am now. They only love it for it's beauty and artistic value. I'm pretty sure if you're reading this you've read other entry and you already know the story, so I won't go into it. I just hope you'll give it a chance in your lounge room, I think the reward will be greatmm Feb. 2006. I had to come back to this movie and read more commentaries since I was here. I felt saddened by some, expressing some kind of paranoia or just pure negativism. One entry asked us to take off our "rosy" glasses to watch this movie... For one I wish I could find my 'rosy' glasses again as the world I see today needs badly to be seen through such device or we'll soon run out of Prozac. Then people wear all kind of glasses with all kind of colours and so see things accordingly that is not to say that other should join in. I wander what colour of glasses Mother Theresa, "l'abbe Pierre" or the like of them wore to achieve what they did. I see Marcelino Bread and Wine" as a simple,touching and beautiful story despite not having entering a church for decades. MM PS Having mentioned my difficulty to search this tittle I tried again because I forgot to bookmark it. This time I made sure to enter in the search field "The miracle of Marcelino" and for result got : Marcelino Pan y Vino (Aka the miracle of Marcelino)...How this for contradiction!