By Mark Pattison

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Early in the morning after the Hollywood premiere of his new film, “The Vessel,” Cuban-American Catholic writer-director Julio Quintana said its two main characters are based on himself.

First, there’s Father Douglas, played by Martin Sheen. The priest represents Quintana’s time at the University of Texas, where he switched his major from engineering to religious studies to better do theological battle with the Protestant students living in his dormitory.

“I set upon the naive attempt of proving my faith through history,” he said. “I’m studying Islam, Judaism and Christianity. I’m studying ancient Greek and reading all these historical documents. His takeaway from all that study: “You can’t really prove any of these religions wrong, but you can’t prove any of them right, either.”

Quintana said he grew depressed by the fact that “I couldn’t prove my faith academically, and I really wasn’t sure what to make of that. It really took a while to come to grips with the fact that why won’t God let me prove what I know?” Thus, he added, “Father Douglas is me in a lot of ways, my young student self, trying to categorize and prove and make everything academic.”

Then there’s Leo – portrayed by Quintana’s brother, Lucas – who builds the boat that is the movie’s title, but could also be seen as a vessel of sorts himself.

Source of Healing

“Leo is more me now, which is a young guy who doesn’t know but feels. The movie is my boat. I didn’t know why I was making it when I started it. I felt I had to do it for my own spiritual journey, and how it’s a source of healing,” Julio Quintana told Catholic News Service (CNS) in a Sept. 8 telephone interview from Los Angeles, Calif.

“The Vessel” tells the story of the aftermath of a tidal wave that hits an unnamed Latin American coastal town, taking out the town school – and all of its pupils. The mothers of the dead students refuse to bear any more children, and vow to wear black in mourning, until they receive some kind of acknowledgement from God of their loss.

Father Douglas is sent to the town to bring healing but makes little headway. Leo, whose kid brother was among those swept away in the tidal wave and whose mother closed in on herself after the tragedy, drowns in a separate accident but miraculously revives three hours later, with some in the town wondering whether Leo’s miraculous revival – and each thing he does afterward – is the sign.

“The Vessel” opened in theaters Sept. 16. It was filmed in both Spanish and English. Quintana had intended to make the movie only in Spanish, but he said Sheen and the investors, all of whom were from the United States, told him, “Americans don’t like to read subtitles.”

So Quintana made an English version as well. He said the toughest part of the dual-language project was editing the Spanish version, which he did after editing the English version, taking six months itself.

“It was a huge hurdle just to turn on the computer to do it again,” he said. “It’s like climbing a mountain, then coming down and doing it all over.”

Gaining Neighbors’ Trust

Shooting was done in a small neighborhood near the wall of the Old San Juan district of the Puerto Rican capital that Quintana said police are wary of entering. But after gaining the neighbors’ trust, filming was mostly a breeze.

One notable exception occurred when a woman came out to her veranda and started blasting music from a boom box. Neither of the film’s two assistant directors could convince her to turn it off. As a last gasp, Quintana sent his wife, Marla, one of the movie’s producers. Shortly thereafter, the music stopped, but Marla didn’t immediately return to the set.

The reason the woman “didn’t feel like helping,” according to Julio Quintana: “We found out that night her 15-year-old son had died of a drug overdoses. Marla stayed 45 minutes over there crying with her, hugging her.”

In the movie’s climactic scene, a camera operator fixed the lens on one man. “He wasn’t an extra,” Quintana told CNS. But the man had tears streaming down his face – perfect for the scene. He turned out to be the dead teen’s father, finally able to unleash his emotions over the death of his son.

“The Vessel” has its share of symbolism, and perhaps more than its share. “Catholics seem to connect with, more than other groups, the symbolism in the film,” Quintana told CNS. “Symbolism has always been a huge part of Catholic tradition. It’s always been a big part of my life. … You smelled something and it immediately reminds you of your grandmother’s garage. Those symbols are very effective because they tap into something deeper.

“Somebody will see an image of the hole in the foot and that will imply to them there’s something going on deeper than the surface of that image,” he continued.

“There’s always just something below the surface connecting. Catholic audiences, even though it’s difficult for them to articulate because it’s a more emotional reaction. Catholic symbols help tap into that sense of something below the surface, and there’s more to life than meets the eye.”