Our new favourite …
Boxset
What’s it called?
The Miracle
What’s it about?
The clash between science and religion. Or, to put it another way, it's about a plastic statue of the Virgin Mary found by Italian special forces during a raid on the lair of a Mafia don. He’s in captivity as the series starts, but won’t say where the statue came from. What’s really troubling the authorities, however, is that the statue weeps human blood at a rate of nine litres an hour. Which is why the Prime Minister is called in to decide what to do about it. Oh, and he’s in the middle of a referendum campaign which could see Italy leave the EU. Not that anyone would be stupid enough to do that ...
Who’s in it?
Guido Caprino plays Italian PM Fabrizio Pietromarchi and Elena Lietti is his wife Sole, but it’s the writer-director team that’s most notable: Niccolo Ammaniti, whose 2001 novel was filmed as the critically acclaimed I’m Not Scared, and Francesco Munzi, who made the excellent Black Souls, a hit at the 2015 Glasgow Film Festival.
Best bits so far?
Well, if a statue of the Virgin Mary weeping blood at nine litres an hour isn’t enough of a treat for you, the score is by Mexican electro dude Murcof and just to underline the fact that this is arthouse TV at its finest, cult UK band Tindersticks also appear on the soundtrack.
Where can I find it?
The eight-part series is available for digital download now from iTunes, Amazon Prime and Google Play and is released on DVD on March 25 (Acorn Media).
Fun fact …
Originally created for Sky Italia, it’s from the same team that made 2017 hit The Young Pope.
For fans of ...
Mysteries; miracles; anything by Dan Brown set in Rome and involving iffy priests and the Vatican.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here