Directed by Tinatin Kajrishvili from a script she wrote with Basa Janikashvili, Citizen Saint (Mokalake Tsmindani) is a curious drama small in scope that dares to ask big questions about faith, religion, and why some people feel the necessity of believing in a higher power. With such a touchy subject intertwined with its story, it risked quickly becoming propagandistic. Instead, Citizen Saint treats the sensitive subject with the subtlety it deserves. While some of the answers the movie proposes might be uncomfortable, it still shines for never falling prey to oversimplifications.

Citizen Saint takes place in a small mining village where people endure the hardships of their humble life thanks to their faith in a stone saint that watches over the people from the top of a mountain. It’s not a Christian saint as the statue represents a miner who was unofficially canonized by the local population many years before the movie’s events. As the story goes, there once was a miner named Valero who survived a cave-in and was granted miraculous powers, even though he lost his voice in the accident. After supposedly performing miracles, he was tortured, crucified, and left hanging over the mountain. After three days, his body turned to stone. Since then, it became a tradition for miners to ask for protection from the stone saint before venturing into the belly of the mountain. Furthermore, villagers come from afar to offer sacrifices to the statue.

Right from the beginning, Citizen Saint explores the presence of faith in abandoned corners of the world where dangerous work and poverty lead people to imagine a savior is looking out for them. It’s also important that the story uses a local saint to convey its message instead of a familiar Christian figure. As much as Christianity might look like a structured religion with precise rituals, in practice religious faith is reinterpreted according to local needs. That’s why, in a mining city, the saint guarding people’s lives must also be a miner, someone who suffered the same way the masses still suffer.

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‘Citizen Saint’ Explores Religious Syncretism
Image via Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

By exploring religious syncretism, Kajrishvili opens a window to a reality that’s still ignored by people in the West where churches spread like conglomerates, distributing ready-made inscriptions believers must follow to the letter. Yet Citizen Saint is not only interesting for shedding light on this phenomenon. Additionally, the movie also grapples with how faith thrives in mystery. After presenting the quiet life of the mining community, Citizen Saint shakes things up by seemingly bringing its stone savior to life. The statue is removed from the mountain to be restored in the nearby museum dedicated to the saint, but it vanishes in the middle of the night. The doors are locked and the security seals around the building remain unbroken. To add another intriguing layer to the puzzle, a mute foreigner (George Babluani) shows up in town. It doesn’t take long for the people to decide the stranger is the statue that came to life, a fact that is, at first, much celebrated. However, as days go by, the presence of a living saint becomes a nuisance for the mining village.

As soon as they see their saint walking among them, believers start to wonder if the man might reveal the dark secrets spoken in confession. It’s harder to admit being a sinner when you are no longer speaking with a statue. And since the man has divine powers, what stops him from reading the sinners’ minds? Likewise, it’s easier to justify an unanswered prayer when believers are asking for favors from an inanimate object. However, once there’s a flesh-and-bone person that could theoretically explain why some miracles didn’t happen, the villagers start to hold grudges against the saint. Finally, while a statue can spend years without performing a miracle without being discredited, the living saint is constantly questioned and asked to prove his powers.

The slow burn nature of Citizen Saint, together with its black-and-white cinematography, might scare away some viewers. However, people willing to give the movie a chance will find a clever deconstruction of religious faith that unveils some uncomfortable truths. Above everything else comes the fact that without mystery, faith can become a threat, leading people to question the reality around them. Once that starts to happen, there’s no longer the possibility to pin the blame for your misfortunes on an esoteric higher power.

Rating: B

Citizen Saint had its world premiere at 2023’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.