The performance of Michael Lonsdale as "Father Luc" was outstanding. He was the doctor who looked after local people with patience and kindness, and attended to the bullet wound of one of the terrorists, remarking to the Prior that he had also treated Nazis in his time.
The heroism of the monks is shown against the backdrop of uncertainty in the community. The decision to remain despite the growing menace is only reached gradually but once they are agreed, there is a wonderful scene in which Father Luc brings a couple of bottles of wine to supper the night before they are all taken. He puts on a tape of the dying swan from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and the characters of the individual monks are shown in their faces.
The 15 certificate is probably given because of a scene that is (unnecessarily) graphic early on when the terrorists cut some people's throats. Apart from that, there is nothing unpleasant, and I would recommend this film to you as a sympathetic portrayal of genuine nobility, courage, and Christian charity.
4 comments:
A wonderful and moving film - John
@ Father Finigan
Terry Nelson's Blog has some YouTube links and interesting comments.. http://abbey-roads.blogspot.com/2010/12/des-hommes-et-des-dieux.html
The C of E's Father Peter Fellowes, and Nick Daubeny the famous film location manager once appointed me as Community Liaison Officer for Deptford/London on the Neil Jordan film for Hollywood Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) at St Paul's Church, Deptford SE8.
As Community Liaison Officer for London, I was partly responsible for getting all the scenes of occult gratuitous violence involving Brad Pitt and the poet Heathcote Williams cut.
I presented the script to Father John Collier of St Lawrence's R.C Church in Sidcup, and told him that I believed that the scenes involving Brad Pitt's vampire attack, and murder, of the priest played by Heathcote Williams on holy ground, were so violent that they had deliberately been omitted from the main shoot at rich New Orleans R.C Cathedral, and transferred to the poor Baroque backdrop at St Paul's C of E Deptford, who couldn't afford to say NO.
All the St Paul's SE8 scenes were cut after Father Collier's subsequent intervention, and I seem to recall Dustin Hoffman using our very words 'gratuitous violence' in an SOS film industry campaign response.
The film had a star cast, a multi million dollar budget and a 666 script.
In my professional opinion Hollywood still owes poor England 999 serious damages for that piece of artwork, which I consider to be a malevolent attack on our group soul.
PAPA RATZI ( http://www.thepapalvisit.org ) ORA PRO NOBIS!
I saw it this afternoon and agree wholeheartedly with your account, except that I found the Tchaikovsky an excruciatingly naff intrusion into an incredibly moving "Last Supper" scene.
I really liked the movie. It was quite "intense". I thought the comment made by the Muslim woman when they thought of leaving was quite interesting: "We [the villagers] are the birds; you [the monks] are the tree."
On another note: perhaps it was a wardrobe mistake or perhaps it was to highlight the monks' impending martyrdom, but they were wearing purple stoles right AFTER Christmas.
Post a Comment