When Ernesto, a famous artist and avowed atheist learns that his late mother is to be sainted, he is forced into acknowledging his own unexamined beliefs as well as the dark hypocrisies within outmoded religious rituals. Alluding to the mysterious smile of a certain secular saint of art, Bellocchio treats the story as Ernesto may his own paintings, with a Caravaggio light and a surreal, slightly defiant movement in and out of the old world and the new, in and out of reality and dream. The mother’s unlikely canonization illuminates the far reaches of Catholicism within Italian society and Ernesto’s own psyche, setting off an array of desperate reactions, from a contrived marketing campaign to an awkward duel. Realizing his family’s need of their own saint extends beyond the spiritual into more pragmatic ideas of political, economic, social and emotional protection, Ernesto attempts to create his own path to transcendence and compassion through love. The validation, contradiction and unidentified otherworldly experiences he receives in return sublimely complicate Bellocchio’s open-ended, agnostic inquisition into the human and the divine.