La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin

La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin
Directed by	Julien Duvivier
Starring	Simone Bourday André Marnay François Viguier Janine Borelli
Release date	8 November 1929
Running time	113 minutes

La Vie miraculeuse de Thérèse Martin is a French film, directed by Julien Duvivier, and released in 1929. It is a " stark and striking biographical account of the late 19th century Discalced Carmelite nun who died at age 24 from tuberculosis and was canonized in 1925. The film is based on the spiritual autobiography Thérèse wrote, L'Histoire d'une âme. The same material inspired Alain Cavalier's film Thérèse.

The film follows Thérèse Martin as she moves from the close circle of her family home in Lisieux to the austere world of the Carmel, where she joins her older sisters Pauline and Marie. In this film version of the Saints life, the Devil (François Viguier) appears before her taking of the veil, and again when she lies ill in the infirmary. This is a direct allusion to the trials she faced when she doubted her vocation, and near the end of her life when she wondered how she would die. " In childhood the great events of my life seemed from afar like mountains I could never reach. When I saw other little girls going to First Communion, I said to myself: how shall I ever reach my First Communion? Later: how shall I ever get to the point of entering Carmel? And still later: reach my Clothing, make my Profession? And now I say the same of dying. The devil is about me. I feel him near me. He torments me and holds me with a grip of iron to deprive me of all consolation, trying by increasing my sufferings to make me despair. Oh, how necessary it is to pray for the dying. If you only knew! How needful is that prayer we use at Compline: "Free us from the phantoms of the night!"

Cast

• Simone Bourday as Thérèse of Lisieux
• André Marnay
• Janine Borelli
• François Viguier
• Suzanne Christy
• Jane Dolys
• Lionel Salem