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There's still hope
Sep. 19th, 2010 03:46 pmI often lament about the lack of great French writers or great French films these days. Compared to the beginning of the XXth century French literature has been poor for the past decades, and French movies keep disappointing me.
But I've read the interesting and original Mémoire de La Jungle by Tristan Garcia and I'm reading Michel Houellebecq's La Carte et le Territoire, which is really really good. Besides I saw yesterday Xavier Beauvois's Des hommes et des Dieux so there's hope still.
No matter what is said about Houellebecq, he is a good writer and true author –– not the likes of Marc Lévy or Anna Gavalda or Amélie Nothomb who sell so many books every year–– and his last book belongs to Literature with a capital L.
As for Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of Gods and Men), it's the best French film I have seen for a very long time. It won Le Grand Prix in Cannes and many critics consider it should have received la Palme d'or instead of Uncle Boonmee (I haven't seen Uncle Boonmee yet so I can't tell). Xavier Beauvois whose Le Petit Lieutenant I enjoyed very much years ago, really turned out to be an amazing film maker.
Go, run if needed, and see this movie! If you are a movie buff you will be thrilled, if you're a believer you will feel warm, and if you're just a human being you will be deeply touched.
By the way, it's funny to think that a movie like this does much more for the Catholic Church and its Christian values, even though it isn't Xavier Beauvois's intent at all, than The Pope's behaviour or speeches.
Des hommes et des dieux tells the story of the Trappist monks from Tibihirine (a monastery in the Atlas) who died in 1996, during those horrible years in Algeria when the F.I.S party, that had been declared outlaw after it had too much success in elections, tried to conquer power using terrorism while the government (ruled since 1962 by one party, the FLN) fought back using similar means. It was a decade of violence and sheer terror for everybody living in Algeria and a lot of blood has been shed. Seven monks (out of the 9 who lived in the monastery then)were among the thousands victims because they decided to stay over there. Finally they were seized by G.I.A (the F.I.S's army) and their heads were found later...
For a long time their death has been a mystery, even though the official version was that the Islamist terrorists killed them. However last year a former French officer from the secret services finally told a judge what he knew from a fellow Algerian officer but had covered until then for the sake of the French-Algerian relationship: it's likely that it's actually "an error" (I don't know the English word for "bavure") from the Algerian army that killed the monks.
That said, the film isn't about the mystery or about who killed the monks. It's about their last days, about the everyday life that was theirs, about brotherhood, harmony and solidarity; about the fraternity within that religious community but also between the monks and their Algerian neighbours who lived in the village nearby and often shared stuff with the brothers and whom the Trappists helped but never tried to convert; about the harmony between men from different cultures (an example of peaceful coexistence between religions) and also between men and nature.
Of course the violence surrounding Tibihirine is there and the film doesn't shy away from the consequences of terrorism or the threat of having the military around, but it isn't a study on terrorism or a documentary on the civil war in Algeria.
It's first and foremost about those men, and at some point, despite the liturgy, the religious singing and the habit, you forget that they are monks, you just see how human they are. They don't live or dies as heroes but as men. And they are simply touching.
You can see the trailer on youtube.
The film is beautifully shot and moving but never falls into melodrama; it isn't austere but it isn't a hollywood movie either!
Beauvois films the everyday life of the monks like he filmed the everyday life of a police station in Le Petit Lieutenant. His movie has the realism of a documentary but also the lyricism of an opera. There are the beautiful landscapes of the Atlas, the camera indulging in a contemplative side that suits the Cistercian order; there's the quiet of working the land and another kind of quiet that comes from the hymns they sing; there are also moments of smile and moments of tears.
The cast is brilliant; Michael Lonsdale is a wonderful brother Luc, Lambert Wilson isn't bad as Christian (he's even quite good when he stops watching himself act) and I was impressed by Olivier Rabourdin as brother Christophe (on the picture below). The most beautiful scene in the film, as the monks are having a Last Supper together while listening to The Swan Lake and drinking burgondy wine, is rather daring and could have been terrible but was poignant and powerful. I couldn't help crying then.
Those monks won't be forgotten.
( The rest is in French )
But I've read the interesting and original Mémoire de La Jungle by Tristan Garcia and I'm reading Michel Houellebecq's La Carte et le Territoire, which is really really good. Besides I saw yesterday Xavier Beauvois's Des hommes et des Dieux so there's hope still.
No matter what is said about Houellebecq, he is a good writer and true author –– not the likes of Marc Lévy or Anna Gavalda or Amélie Nothomb who sell so many books every year–– and his last book belongs to Literature with a capital L.
As for Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of Gods and Men), it's the best French film I have seen for a very long time. It won Le Grand Prix in Cannes and many critics consider it should have received la Palme d'or instead of Uncle Boonmee (I haven't seen Uncle Boonmee yet so I can't tell). Xavier Beauvois whose Le Petit Lieutenant I enjoyed very much years ago, really turned out to be an amazing film maker.
Go, run if needed, and see this movie! If you are a movie buff you will be thrilled, if you're a believer you will feel warm, and if you're just a human being you will be deeply touched.
By the way, it's funny to think that a movie like this does much more for the Catholic Church and its Christian values, even though it isn't Xavier Beauvois's intent at all, than The Pope's behaviour or speeches.
Des hommes et des dieux tells the story of the Trappist monks from Tibihirine (a monastery in the Atlas) who died in 1996, during those horrible years in Algeria when the F.I.S party, that had been declared outlaw after it had too much success in elections, tried to conquer power using terrorism while the government (ruled since 1962 by one party, the FLN) fought back using similar means. It was a decade of violence and sheer terror for everybody living in Algeria and a lot of blood has been shed. Seven monks (out of the 9 who lived in the monastery then)were among the thousands victims because they decided to stay over there. Finally they were seized by G.I.A (the F.I.S's army) and their heads were found later...
For a long time their death has been a mystery, even though the official version was that the Islamist terrorists killed them. However last year a former French officer from the secret services finally told a judge what he knew from a fellow Algerian officer but had covered until then for the sake of the French-Algerian relationship: it's likely that it's actually "an error" (I don't know the English word for "bavure") from the Algerian army that killed the monks.
That said, the film isn't about the mystery or about who killed the monks. It's about their last days, about the everyday life that was theirs, about brotherhood, harmony and solidarity; about the fraternity within that religious community but also between the monks and their Algerian neighbours who lived in the village nearby and often shared stuff with the brothers and whom the Trappists helped but never tried to convert; about the harmony between men from different cultures (an example of peaceful coexistence between religions) and also between men and nature.
Of course the violence surrounding Tibihirine is there and the film doesn't shy away from the consequences of terrorism or the threat of having the military around, but it isn't a study on terrorism or a documentary on the civil war in Algeria.
It's first and foremost about those men, and at some point, despite the liturgy, the religious singing and the habit, you forget that they are monks, you just see how human they are. They don't live or dies as heroes but as men. And they are simply touching.
You can see the trailer on youtube.
The film is beautifully shot and moving but never falls into melodrama; it isn't austere but it isn't a hollywood movie either!
Beauvois films the everyday life of the monks like he filmed the everyday life of a police station in Le Petit Lieutenant. His movie has the realism of a documentary but also the lyricism of an opera. There are the beautiful landscapes of the Atlas, the camera indulging in a contemplative side that suits the Cistercian order; there's the quiet of working the land and another kind of quiet that comes from the hymns they sing; there are also moments of smile and moments of tears.
The cast is brilliant; Michael Lonsdale is a wonderful brother Luc, Lambert Wilson isn't bad as Christian (he's even quite good when he stops watching himself act) and I was impressed by Olivier Rabourdin as brother Christophe (on the picture below). The most beautiful scene in the film, as the monks are having a Last Supper together while listening to The Swan Lake and drinking burgondy wine, is rather daring and could have been terrible but was poignant and powerful. I couldn't help crying then.
Those monks won't be forgotten.
( The rest is in French )