For a long time, there have been groups inside the Catholic Church opposing each other. The latest example happens today as Pope Francis has more amicable eyes on the LGBTQIA+ community, which has drawn ire from conservative sectors.

In its history, the Catholic Church has problematic passages such as the Holy Inquisition, its role in the Colonization and the Atlantic Slave Trade, and the paedophilic scandals shown in the picture ‘Spotlight’ (2015). On the other hand, it is also regarded for its charity work as giving voice to the Indigenous community in the Amazon that suffers from human rights violations, providing food and shelter to São Paulo’s homeless population and chemical-dependent population, and in the recent past with some relevant voices opposing the late 20th Century South-American dictatorships and its abuses which led to priests being tortured themselves amongst politicians and activists. For good and evil, the Catholic Church has a rich history with dogmas, iconographies, characters, clothing, rituals, and other aspects due to its century-old existence, and ‘The First Omen’ makes good use of it alongside the moral dilemmas.

‘The Omen’ questions Christian morality by presenting if the adoptive father would go as far as killing the satanic child on holy ground to prevent the rise of the incumbent apocalypse Damien would bring. The sequel ‘Damien – Omen II’ positions the same question to the new guardian, Damien’s uncle, who grows wary of the teenager. In the third chapter, ‘Omen III: The Final Conflict,’ Damien is a wealthy 33-year-old man, and finally a journalist who is also his former love interest delivers the killing blow. The fourth entry, a made-for-TV movie that is also the lowest point in the franchise, brings the daughter of Damien as the satanic antagonist and once more questions if the protagonist would slay a child to prevent the advent of doomsday.

Much of the Catholic thinking lies on guilt, and ‘thou shalt not kill’ is a moral imperative included in the Ten Commandments. Killing is already a problematic action due to its moral and emotional implications, which makes slaughtering a child an even more abhorrent act that movies and TV series, in general, avoid. If they have it in the storyline, it is primarily off-the-screen.

Enter Damien…

The series ‘Damien’ (2016) is a sequel to the original film, but it erases the other instalments. In this tale, the moral question rests on the shoulder of Damien himself, a good-hearted 30-year-old war photographer who starts to slip into his demonic urges and surrenders to his heritage after asking Satan to resurrect his girlfriend, who took a bullet for him. Thus, love leads Damien to accept his role as the herald of humanity’s downfall.
In ‘The First Omen,’ the moral question is more insidious. The protagonist, Margaret (Tiger Free), a young American novitiate, goes to Rome to work at an orphanage as requested by the Church.

The caring Cardinal Lawrence, her old mentor, and the stern Sister Silva (Sônia Braga), leader of the nuns, represent masculine and feminine archetypes, as well as the father and the mother images, inside the film and Church structures. But the moral issue goes more profound than the previous entries in the franchise because the place serves as an incubator of hellspawns, showing the lengths that a sect inside the Catholic Church would go to see it once again rising in a world succumbing to the questioning of values by counterculture and civil rights movements, including in 1970s Italy. Father Brennan (Ineson), the expelled member of the Church, represents those who are considered rogues for taking a stand against unethical practices inside powerful institutions. Nell Tiger Free surrenders her talent and prowess to become three separate entities, whether as a caring older sister to the children, a seductive succubus, or a tested survivor.

Braga gives another showcase of her world-class talent. This time, she shows her shops as a full-blown villain, which serves as a dark opposite to her portrayal of the Portuguese nun who had visions of the Holy Mary in the Christian movie ‘Fatima’ (2020). When viewed in retrospect, both characters serve as a metalanguage for complex positions and portrayals of the Catholic Church.

Novitiate Margaret and Sister Silva represent pious and motherly images of sacred women ingrained in the collective imagery. Although there have been in cinema previous Catholic priestesses who broke the vows, these two compose a disturbing image as the former gives in to lust. In contrast, the latter is not a caring mother as she favours the male descendants of Satan while being negligent and abusive towards the female ones, bringing more moral drama into the narrative.

The behaviour and organization of this group acting in favour of Satan inside the Church can be interpreted as a cult. When I interviewed screenwriter and author of When the World Didn’t End (2023) Guinevere Turner (Charlie Says), she stated that one of the common patterns of cults is “patriarchy on steroids and in the rare case when there is a woman in charge it is still power dynamics on steroids in which women and children usually suffer.” Although describing real-life cults, which Turner knows from personal experience and extensive research, the writer’s words mirror the dynamics seen in ‘The First Omen.’

With its unholy cult as antagonists, ‘The First Omen’ positions a bigger picture than going up against the antichrist by questioning how a small group of people without considerable means can go against a powerful institution while questioning their own morality and choices.

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“Sônia Braga’s filmography reveals by itself the place of the actress in the world cinema. She has been living and working in the US for more than 30 years and had important roles in the movies produced in Hollywood” evaluates Brazilian film scholar Daniela Gillone, from the University of São Paulo (USP), in an exclusive interview with Big Picture Film Club.

In the Brazilian silver screens, many of her entries are in the top ten of all-time box office hits but like many of her compatriots she had to cut her teeth and make her name in the popular telenovelas.

“Her career peaked during the 70’s and the 80’s coincidently with a period of intense communication from Brazilian productions with the local public. Pictures like ‘Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands’ (1976) and ‘Lady on the Bus’ (1978) represent this very positive moment regarding her popularity and taking over of the domestic market. It is important to remember that parallel to her cinema career, Sônia became one of our major TV stars. For the mainstream audiences, it seems to me that she is more known for her TV work over the movies, however both activities converge to make her one of the most popular Brazilian actresses by the tail end of the 20th Century,” contemplates Sérgio Rizzo, critic from ‘O Globo’ newspaper in an interview with Big Picture Film Club.
In our conversation, Rizzo reminds me that like many foreign talents the fact that her mother tongue is not English, but Portuguese, presents an obstacle and the pigeonholing of foreigners. Braga, like others, had to endure and overcome that to achieve her legendary status.

Gillone observes that “Braga projected herself as a beauty icon and proposed alternatives for the female desire in a traditionalist and conservative culture. I highlight ‘Gabriela’ (1983) by Bruno Barreto where she acted alongside Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni. In this movie, the actress progresses with her resistant posture to the norms imposed on female representations. In national and international movies, we have her singular politics of women’s desire and fantasy building. She brings the figure of a libertarian woman that predominates in her roles and dialogues with her own posture as an actress in world cinema.”

Still, for the current moviegoer crop, Braga is remembered for her later works with Brazilian auteur Kleber Mendonça in the pictures ‘Aquarius’ and ‘Bacurau’ playing older authority figures as an elder stateswoman fighting for the legacy of her building and city in the former or as the doctor in a forgotten city which serves as a human hunting game for foreigners in the horror western that is the latter. Both performances are acclaimed by critics and overlooked during the award seasons.

And in her mid-career entries, Braga showed how ranged she could be even then by playing three different characters in ‘Kiss of the Spider-Woman’ a seminal picture dialoguing about sexual identity and the horrors imposed by dictatorial states on bodies and minds of those deemed enemies.

Another side of her biography is the political activism in defence of human rights and the environmental agenda. Braga “is not aligned with the official conservative speeches” ponders Gillone pointing out her long-standing democratic values, protesting the state of Brazilian politics at the 2016 Cannes festival, and her solidarity towards the minorities.
The scholar believes that Braga’s legacy will be the acknowledgement of the historical struggle by Brazilian actresses for more visibility, equal payment to their male counterparts, and valuing of older female characters as also the resistance of female characters to be seen not only as objects of desire or second-string players.

Rizzo believes that Braga’s legacy is related to another name that is highly associated with Brazil and became a staple in Hollywood and entertainment. “I believe that her place is very special, besides Carmen Miranda, the Portuguese that for us became a Brazilian, as our greatest movie stars.”

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