Of Gods and Men is one of those movies that is a better story than a film, but is still a pretty good film as well. The screenplay is based on the true story of a group of French Trappist monks living in a monastery in a village in Algeria. (I'd speculated they were Fransiscans, since in one shot we see a monk studying the writings of St. Francis of Assisi alongside the Koran, but I know next to nothing about monks so I'll defer to Wikipedia.) As religious violence against non-Muslims in the country continues to rise, the monks must decide whether to flee or stay at the monastery and continue to serve the community, where they are an important source of medical treatment, among other things.
The story is powerful, and the monks are for the most part very likeable characters. The audience wonders why anybody would ever want to hurt them, of all people. The movie does try to avoid Muslim-bashing, providing several moderate Muslim characters who voice their own disgust at the violence of the extremists. But in the end, when the film's antagonist is a bunch of Muslims who like to kill non-Muslims and any girl who doesn't wear a hijab, and the protagonists are a bunch of peaceful Christians who only want to provide medicine to the villagers, well, you can draw your own conclusions about what message that sends. While it may not be intended as such, it's easy to see this movie as another piece of anti-Muslim propaganda, particularly coming from France. Needless to say that's not how I viewed it, and perhaps it's best viewed as a historical piece, since the original events occurred in 1994, and not try to connect it too much to the current world situation (except that it's impossible not to make that comparison).
When a film has such a strong story, it can afford to be weak in other areas, and in many ways this film is unremarkable. Some things I really enjoyed were the scenes of the monks' daily lives. In particular, there is a shot of the chapel (is that the right word?) where the monks perform their ceremonies, which is repeated several times throughout the film. Each time, the camera angle is exactly the same, but the positions of the monks varies, conveying the repetition we expect to be a part of monastic life with a sense of progression and change at the same time. In other scenes, the filmic qualities are a tad heavy-handed. When a monk stumbles along a path, at night, in the dark, with the hand-held camera jerking behind him, it is a not-so-subtle tip that something bad is about to happen. My favorite of the monks was Luc, the old hunchbacked physician monk played by Michael Lonsdale (a familiar face which I can't quite place but others will: among numerous others, he's appeared in Moonraker, The Name of the Rose, The Remains of the Day, and Ronin -- all movies I've "kind of" seen before). When Luc arrives to a supper near the end of the movie, toting two bottles of wine, he pops on a tape of Tchaikovsky for dinner music. As the music grows more and more menacing, the camera cycles over the monk's faces, each more and more despondent. Clearly, this is not a supper; it is the last supper. At least we're spared any Michelangelo-esque shots.
Criticisms aside, this is a film I really wanted to see when it was in theaters, but it passed me by. When Rachel noticed it on the list of On Demand movies, I didn't even recognize the title anymore. I'm extremely glad she did, though, because it's worth a watch. Especially if you (like me) like movies about monks. I'm still waiting for the right time to watch that three-hour epic monastic documentary, Into Great Silence.
P.S. This movie is in French (with some Arabic) with subtitles!
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