Such philosophical films keep you thinking days after you've seen them. Poitier is his usual silent enigmatic self. His arriving at death scenes reminds me of, ever so many centuries ago, the great Hindu g Adi Shankara, promising his mother that he would be back at her death bed, before receiving permission from her for commencing his wanderings and preaching philosophy in India. In a way, the Sidney Poitier character was like him---he did not preach, but he observed, and he went all over the world while Sankara travelled all over India. If in 1971, the world seemed so dismal, today in 2024, it is a million times more so, (notwithstanding the so called technological advancements), and most of the clear thinking men are simply waiting for an apocalypse. Or a deliverance, as it were.
Review of Brother John
