Noomi Rapace plays a twisted Mother Teresa in “Mother.”

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In these galloping bio-pic times, it was only a matter of time before the Albanian angel Mother Teresa was projected onto the big screen. Peace Prize winner with empathy as her superpower. A name that, like those of Gandhi and Mandela, shines with a historical, almost transcendental goodness. How do you make a film about a saint without falling to your knees?

The year is 1948, the place is Calcutta. Mother Teresa wants to start her own order, a hardcore matriarchal variety. Asceticism, renunciation, absolution. But she has to get the Pope’s permission and when we enter the monastery there are still seven days until the announcement. So just a week in the life of an icon. That’s a good restriction. Instead of squeezing a mythical existence into a standard feature film period, we get Mother Teresa in micro format.

The North Macedonian The filmmaker Teona Strugar Mitevska, best known in narrow circles for the feminist drama “God exists, her name is Petrunya”, also tells the story of a woman trapped in a patriarchal environment. Frequently asked question: Did Mother Teresa score good points (as some of her critics have claimed over the years) or was she pure compassion on two sinewy legs?

Noomi Rapace, who conveys to us a strict and almost petty type, tense like a guitar string – constantly on the verge of breaking.

Mitevska is on Teresa’s side, but it’s still not a nice painting. Rather the opposite. Noomi Rapace, who conveys to us a strict and almost petty type, tense like a guitar string – constantly on the verge of breaking. A character that could step right into any horror movie about possessed Catholics with just a small lighting adjustment.

Naomi Rapace does So a Noomi Rapace, and with emphasis. She’s really good at playing tough and hard to reach (it would be a little shocking to see her smile), but unfortunately here her acting style alienates rather than seduces – and the script doesn’t provide any further introduction to the character. Those with particular interest may be able to fill in the gaps themselves, but for the signatories, who mostly used the saint’s name as a simple rhetorical comparison (as in “X was certainly not Mother Teresa”), it is a mystery from start to finish.

Instead, it is her convent sisters who are responsible for the mental forward movement, illustrating her possible inner fear, her possible desire to become a mother instead of a mother. When it turns out that the nun Agnieszka, who named Teresa as her future successor, is pregnant, Teresa is beside herself. Maybe especially because it makes it harder for her to get out. Mother Teresa is full of caustic soda and wants to get out of what she calls a mossy asylum.

Teona Strugar Mitevska and co deal with the myth commendably soberly and even if “Mother” is a rather monotonous journey at times, Mitevska’s direction offers little in the way of life-giving, inspiring whimsy. Like the elusive dream scenes, the occasional thunderous hard rock riffs – and nuns headbanging to Lordi’s “Hard Rock Hallelujah.” Maybe a little sweet, but still irreverently refreshing. No kneeling at all.

See more: Other works by Noomi Rapace that are obviously worth seeing: “Svinalängorna” (2010), “Prometheus” (2012), “Lamm” (2021).

Noomi Rapace is celebrated at the film festival: “I was angry at the world – and at men”

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