There are films that come into your life at the opportune moment. Not because they are the best in cinema history, nor because they have won every possible award, but because they manage to ask you a question that perhaps you needed to hear. That happened to me this week. While looking for a film to disconnect for a while, I ended up finding a true animated gem. I laughed a lot, enjoyed the story, and when the credits rolled, I found myself thinking about Saint Augustine, Homer, and the Gospel of Saint John. Not bad for a comedy starring a flock of sheep.
The film is called Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Movie (2026), starring Hugh Jackman. My intention is not to spoil the story, but to invite you to discover it. At the end of the article, you will find the link to Cine con Sentido, the film section of JAR Internacional where every fortnight we recommend a film worth watching. Today I only want to share this one with you because the story seemed much deeper to me than it appears.
A Shepherd Who Knows His Sheep
The film starts from a delightful idea. Every night, a shepherd gathers his sheep and reads them a chapter of a detective novel before they sleep. They look forward to that moment with genuine excitement. What none of them imagines is that, one day, fiction will knock on the farm door and they will be the ones responsible for solving a mysterious crime.
While watching the film, I realized that the true protagonist was not the mystery. Not even the sheep. It was the shepherd.
Perhaps it is professional bias, but when a shepherd appears in a story, I find it impossible not to think of Christ. And this character has something profoundly evangelical. He does not live apart from the flock. He does not only appear when a problem arises. He shares life with his sheep; he knows them, cares for them, protects them, and, above all, enjoys being with them.
There is a detail that moved me especially: the shepherd does not have a flock; he has sheep. It seems like a trivial point, but it is not. Because a flock can be an anonymous mass. The sheep, on the other hand, have names, character, history, and personality. The shepherd knows who each one of them is.
While watching those scenes, I could not help but remember Sermon 138 of Saint Augustine, in which he comments on the passage of the Good Shepherd. The Bishop of Hippo insists that Christ is the only true Shepherd and that every pastor participates in that unique pastoring only when serving out of love. It is not about exercising power, but about giving oneself. It is not about seeking one’s own benefit, but the good of the sheep. Saint Augustine affirms that all good shepherds are one because they participate in the one Shepherd, who is Christ.
How different our way of living authority would often be—in the Church, in the family, or at work—if we understood that caring never consists of commanding, but of loving.
And what comfort it brings to think that God does not look at us as a number within a statistic. He looks at us as that shepherd in the film looks at his sheep: knowing perfectly who we are and calling us by our name.
Sheep with Lotophagia
However, the film holds a second surprise. The sheep possess a strange gift: they very quickly forget that which makes them suffer. A misfortune lasts barely a few minutes in their memory. Afterwards, they smile again as if nothing had happened.
I admit that, during the first few minutes, I thought that was a true gift. Who would not want to forget the wounds they carry inside? Who would not wish to erase certain pages of their history?
And then a memory from my student years appeared in my head. The Lotus-eaters. Homer tells in the Odyssey that Ulysses reached an island inhabited by a people who fed on the fruit of the lotus.
Whoever tasted it lost their memory. They forgot their homeland, forgot their family, forgot the desire to return home. Some of Ulysses’ companions were trapped in that false happiness, and it was necessary to drag them almost by force to the ship to continue the journey.
The sheep in this film do not forget who they are. Nor do they forget their mission. What they forget is the pain. They live settled in a kind of permanent present where suffering barely leaves a trace.
And yet, little by little they discover that forgetting also has consequences. Because those who forget too much end up being unable to understand what is happening.
Remembering Can Also Save
As the story progressed, I realized that the film was not really talking about forgetting. It was talking about memory.
And that led me directly to Saint Augustine. Few pages have impressed me as much as those of Book X of the Confessions, when he describes memory as an immense interior palace.
There, Augustine says, we do not only preserve images or knowledge; we also keep our history, our affections and, above all, the traces that God has been leaving in our lives. Remembering does not consist of living anchored in the past. Remembering means discovering that God has never stopped walking with us.
Perhaps that is why the Bible is full of invitations to remember. Israel continually remembers the departure from Egypt so as not to forget who they are. Jesus, during the Last Supper, does not simply say “eat” or “drink.” He says: “Do this in memory of me.” The Eucharist is, precisely, the great act of Christian memory.
As I write these lines, I also think of Mary Magdalene before the empty tomb. She weeps inconsolably because the pain has made her forget the words of Jesus. She only sees an open grave. She only sees absence. Until she hears a word.
“Mary!”
It is her name. And, suddenly, everything changes. Not because Christ explains the Resurrection to her, but because He helps her to remember. To remember who He was. To remember who she was. To remember that love had always been stronger than death.
Between Holy Week and Easter
I confess that there was a phrase from the film that continued to resonate in my head for hours. It made me think of a stage in my own life when I also wanted to forget too quickly.
For years I wanted to live being more of Easter than of Holy Week. I liked to talk about joy, hope, and the Resurrection. Without realizing it, I tried to tiptoe through the pain, the questions, and the wounds. Over time I understood that the Gospel never separates one thing from the other. Easter morning does not exist without the night of Good Friday. Nor does a cross exist that does not end up illuminated by the Resurrection.
Christian memory does not consist of staying living in suffering. It consists of remembering that God has been present even there where we thought everything had ended.
Perhaps that is why the sheep in this story only manage to save the flock when they decide to remember. When they stop fleeing from the past and dare to look it in the face. Because there are memories that weigh us down, yes. But there are also memories that sustain life.
A Film to Laugh… and to Start Over
Some time ago I heard it said that a good film is not one that answers questions, but one that accompanies you for several days after watching it. This one has achieved that with me.
It is an intelligent, tender, and very funny comedy. But, at the same time, it speaks of fear, grief, friendship, leadership, community, and that very human temptation to want to erase that which made us suffer. And it does so with surprising delicacy.
Perhaps that is why I wanted to recommend it here as well, on recoletos.org. Because I am convinced that it is not a film only for children. It is a film for adults who still retain the capacity to let themselves be challenged by a good story.
If after reading these lines your curiosity has been piqued, I invite you to discover which one it is in Cine con Sentido, the film section of JAR Internacional. I am convinced that you will laugh. But I also suspect that, when the final credits appear, you too will end up thinking that memory is not a weight from the past, but one of the greatest gifts God has given us. Because only those who remember they have been loved can truly understand that they have never walked alone.
