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Is it worth $10? Yes
Are your principles worth dying for? Better yet, do you believe in them so completely, so unwaveringly, that you are willing to die for them? That’s the question facing the eight monks at the center of Xavier Beauvois’s slow moving yet powerful film “Of Gods and Men.”
The film takes place in the mountains of Algeria in the mid-1990s. For years, the French monks lived side by side peacefully with the Muslims in the community, and provided medical assistance and advice to its inhabitants. Then one day, a band of Islamic extremists slit the throats of a group of Croatian workers. Life in the monastery became less safe for the monks after that.
The monks are faced with a choice: stay or go? Leading them through their crisis of conscience is Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson). He’s the elected head of the order, and the one who the other brothers look up to for advice and guidance.
This decision becomes the main focal point of the film. The brothers hold meetings where they each vote according to their own conscience whether to stay or go. They also have crises of conscience on their own. The most dramatic breakdown occurs with Brother Christophe (Olivier Rabourdin). Alone in his room one night, he desperately cries out to God to not abandon him and to guide him through his ordeal. His pleas are intercut with shots of the other brothers in their rooms, listening to him cry out. It’s a powerful, heart-rending moment.
In addition to getting great performances, Beauvois is also a fantastic visual director. He knows how to use the language of film to tell a story, or to show something beautiful. I’ll give two examples.
First, in terms of showing something beautiful, are his shots of the landscape. There are long shots of the mountains in this film that are so strong and colorful they look as if they were painted by Monet. In addition to that, he captures images of snow as it lays on the walls and the statues in the monastery. While I have to admit that I wish that the plot moved along a little quicker, at the same time I wish that the shots of the snow and the landscape lingered for longer. They were mesmerizing to behold.
The second example comes toward the end of the film. By this point, the monastery has seen its share of ups and downs, and the brothers all know what is happening outside of their walls—and what could potentially happen to them. During dinner, Brother Luc (Michael Lonsdale) puts on some Tchaikovsky and opens up two bottles of wine for the brothers to all share. As they sit and listen and drink, Beauvois pans from one face to the next, showing how happy and exuberant the brothers are to be fulfilling their calling. There is then a cut to Brother Amedee (Jacques Herlin) looking despondent. From there, we pan again to the same faces, yet now each one shows hopelessness and sorrow in his face. It’s a brilliant, cinematic moment, culminating with very tight close ups of Brother Luc and then Brother Christian, who has by now shed so many tears that his glasses are fogged. I can’t begin to describe how happy I was to see such a raw, real moment captured on film. This is the reason to see films with subtitles: They offer a new vision and perspective that standard Hollywood fare could never conjure.
The only issue I have with "Of Gods and Men" is with the pacing. I understand that these are monks, so chanting and praying is what they do. I just wish there wasn't so much of it, or at the very least that the chants--as beautiful as they are--were maybe cut down a bit more to give the film more of an urgent flow. The monks are clearly worried for their safety, but aside from some scenes in the beginning of the film, we're not shown too much of the danger that they face.
The ending, and what happens with these monks, is something that I will leave you to see for yourself. Just do yourself a favor and see it. More films with this type of depth and impact should be watched on the big screen.
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