If I had to summarize Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu’s latest movie in one word, it would unhesitatingly be ‘bleak’. From the isolated Monastery with no running water or electricity nestling in the hills beyond a remote village where even the summers look cold and uninviting, to the plot which is about an ex-orphanage girl who is either epileptic or schizophrenic or just possessed by the Devil.Evidently based on a true event about an exorcism that went horribly wrong this dark dismal story is as much about this patriarchal society where even the Head Nun is not much more than unpaid servant to the lone priest in their midst, and where being bottom of the social heap in a communist country even these days is a pretty miserable existence. Especially if you are a woman.
The story line starts to get a tad monotonous as poor Aline has yet another outburst but frankly I was more interested in the visual imagery of life in the Monastery and its desolate setting. As bleak as it was, it was still totally compelling.
It was all much easy to stomach than Muguio’s breakthrough movie, the Cannes Palme D’Or Winner ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ about two teenagers trying to get illegal abortions which depressed me for weeks, but frankly as good as this latest one is, its not in the same league.
