OF GODS & MEN

The whole crux of this film is whether 8 French Trappist Monks should leave their Monastery, and all the villagers who depend upon them, when the lives are threatened by a group of Terrorists in the midst of a horrific bloody civil war.  The time is 1996, and the setting is the Atlas Mountains in Algeria, where the Monastery has co-habited peacefully playing a vital central role in this Muslim community for almost two hundred years.  They grow their own vegetables, keep bees, run a free Clinic, and spend a great deal of their time in contemplation and worship.  Interestingly enough the Monk’s leader, Brother Christian, appears to spend as much time studying The Koran as he does the Bible.

As the war worsens reports filter back to the Monks about  the rebels who are determined to rid the country of all ‘foreigners’ and have carried out atrocities killing a group of Croatian road builders nearby, and not long after that the Rebels pay a visit to the Monastery demanding medical help and drugs.  Brother Christian stands up to them and refuses their requests, but when the armed men leave, it is clear to the monks that they will probably not be so lucky the next time.

Whilst the tension mounts the Monks discuss their fears about their own safety and whether they should leave whilst they still can.  Over the course of time their wavering disappears and is replaced by a resolve that they should follow their ‘calling’ as men of God.  It’s a remarkable and emotional sequence of conversations that show all their natural fears for their lives and that underneath their monks habits, they are just men too.  The culmination of their decision is shown in a exceptionally wonderful moving scene when they break open wine at their meal table and sit drinking it silently listening to  Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake  and smiling serenely.

An intelligent, powerful and disquieting movie based on an actual incident that carefully avoids any political partisanship and focuses on the strength of the faith of small group of remarkable men.  Unmissable

★★★★★★★★★
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