I usually try to avoid peppering my reviews with personal details, but a word of context might be appropriate to help you understand my love for the new documentary Communion. Last Easter, my wife and I, after a long period of questioning and searching, were received into the Catholic Church. Communion is a film that is broadly pleasing enough to play for just about any audience, but those with a knowledge of and a love for Catholicism will find it especially moving, I think.
Teenage Ola lives in Poland with her father and her brother, Nikodem. Her mother, present for most of the film only via phone calls, lives with another man and her new child. Ola’s father drinks a lot, and has only the mildest grasp on adult responsibility, so Ola must clean, cook, and take care of Nikodem. This proves especially challenging as Nikodem, who is autistic, prepares to receive his first communion in the Church. The run up to this rite of passage involves being grilled by a priest over catechism questions, going to confession for the first time, and other rituals that put Nikodem out of his comfort zone.
The film follows Ola as she bears responsibilities well beyond her years. The toil leaves her frustrated and often short of temper, but still she goes about her work. She clearly loves her father and brother, despite the restrictions their care place on her own life and free time. The hardest part of her situation, though, is the absence of her mother, so when a chance at reconciliation presents itself after Nikodem’s communion, Ola leaps at the chance, despite the risk of further disappointment.
Simply put, this is a great film about faith. Not flashy faith, or faith that wrestles constantly with doubt: a simple faith that works itself out in love day after day. I could not help but think of the Little Flower, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who advocated for the simple ways of holiness, and who has proved a saint especially meaningful to lay Catholics. The film could easily have ended with the triumph of the titular event, but instead it follows the family in the aftermath of the communion too, witnessing the hard truth that significant moments do not automatically relieve pain. Even so, Ola remains resilient.
I also love the way the film depicts a faith that is at once private and communal, ingrained and somewhat alien. The scenes of Ola coaching Nikodem on his catechism or of Nikodem talking to a priest before going to confession, are suffused with humor and a touch of warm absurdity. Even though the children have presumably been raised Catholic, they still undergo a process of discovery. There’s a real beauty to the mind being formed by instruction, even when it happens in fits and starts, and Communion captures this awkward grace with precision.
