Saint Clara (1996)

Simply A Masterpiece

Awesome Movie

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The premise of a girl receiving magic powers and disrupting her town is cool, but the movie doesn't exactly live up to it. You want there to be more to her magic powers than predicting the answers on tests. The movie does have a nice ending though and the principal, math teacher, lawyer father, and Uncle Elvis are a blast.

I saw Saint Clara in Toronto during the Toronto Film Festival in 1997. It was at a theatre not part of the festival at the time but it felt like it could have been (perhaps it was the year before). As others have said, it had an odd, bleak, futuristic look and feel about it but was enjoyable none the less. I would love to find the DVD or tape so I could see it again. Bernie

A class of Israeli junior high kids has discovered a miracle in its midst. One of the students, Clara, a 13 year old Russian immigrant, has begun to see the future. This singular talent arrives suddenly like an unexpected blessing from the gods of puberty, and for a few exciting days, Clara's predictions about math tests and lottery numbers turn her world upside down.And what a world it is. The film, released in 1996, is set three years in the future in an absurdist, industrial cityscape. The school kids talk tough about revolution as they tromp through polluted swamps and through streets lined with huge squares of beehive apartment buildings. The city seems on the very cusp of apocalypse, though it's not clear whether the final crisis will arise from a man-made ecological disaster or from the hand of God in the form of an earthquake. Meanwhile, the revolution threatens to develop into a new religion, with Saint Clara at the center. The entire city listens for her predictions, adult men get crushes on her, and of course the boys in her class end up fighting over her.To complicate things for Clara, her powers may disappear if she falls in love. One of her admirers, Tikel, has a good chance with her though. He's obsessed with her violet eyes, and chicks always fall for that--at least in junior high. "I think your visions come from your eyes," he tells her."Saint Clara" really is about as good as films get. It is a beautiful thing to be able to imagine the near-future, accelerate the world's problems slightly, and then just continue to smile at life. In this way, "Saint Clara" is reminiscent of the irresistibly optimistic films Wim Wenders made during the 1990s. Perhaps the film's best surprise, however, is the voracious, adolescent energy which tints its vision. All the kids in the film are bursting with potential, thirsty for life; and the adults are sad but charming caricatures, thinly-veiled trolls and witches, forever dreaming of their lost youth. A naive misconception, certainly, but here it is also fantastically endearing.Kudos to Kino Video for making this gem available on video. And don't miss the sweet little film at the end of the tape: "Personal Goals."

On the surface, Saint Clara presents itself as a clever and amusing dystopian look at modern society. The central characters inhabit a town of featureless block buildings and deserted streets. Golda Meir High seems to be completely empty except for the principal, one teacher, and one class. And the TV in all the houses are tuned to the same show, in which a wild haired woman makes cryptic prophecies of doom and destruction.Underneath all of this, however, is a traditional folk tale of an alienated young boy who falls in love and makes his peace with society. The boy, the town, and you the viewer learn just how unimportant are things like fame, fortune, and power. And all along the way you are entertained with tales of magic and humorous anecdotes. Long ago, this is the type of tale with which a traveling minstrel would have held your fascination. Remove the post-apocalyptic stylizations and this becomes very reminiscent of the early stories of Isaac B. Singer, which I assume are themselves done in the style of traditional Yiddish folk tales.Don't be put off by the idea of having to sit through a moral lesson; the movie is never didactic or preachy. When you finally see the lesson at the end, it just makes the characters seem that much real and the stories that much more entertaining. This is a short and not particularly ambitious movie, but it succeeds completely in those things which it does set out to accomplish.