At the Arthouse
Stay or go? Of Gods and Men offers Alamo-like comparisons
The cast of "Of Gods and Men"
Lambert Wilson, from left, Philippe Laudenbach and Loic Pichon in "Of Gods andMen"
A scene from "Of Gods and Men" with Michael Lonsdale
Not to be impious, but as I watched Of Gods and Men, which is inspired by the true story of a group of French monks who were first kidnapped and then killed under mysterious circumstances in Algeria in 1996 during a brutal civil war, I kept thinking about the Alamo.
The monks are different from the Alamo defenders in almost every way, starting with their posture of radical non-violence and non-resistance to violence. The monks’ love of their neighbors extended even to the Islamist rebels who are their own potential murderers. But they were “defending” their outpost, in their own profoundly Christian way, by accepting anything God sent their way, including death.
Their elected leader, Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson) doesn’t draw a literal line in the sand when he asks his fellows to individually choose whether to stay or go. But, Travis-like, he does ask them to choose.
On top of that, Brother Christian has a stiff, faintly military bearing (the real-life Christian served in the French military during the Algerian War) which also put me in mind of Travis, and like Travis, Christian wrote a superbly eloquent letter (according to this film at least) explaining why he chose certain death over flight. But when I consider Brother Christian’s letter, I have to admit that comparison collapses.
The monk explains that the village which grew up around the monastery needs them, as the monks provide them with medical and other care. Earlier, when the monks were sharing their doubts with villagers about staying, one monk said, “We are like birds on a branch. Birds who don't know if they will fly away or stay.” A villager replied, "We are the birds; you are the branch. If you leave, we lose our footing."
The glory of this film, (and I use the word advisedly) lies in the way director Xavier Beauvois, and the wonderful cast, take us deep inside the monk’s decision-making process. When Brother Christian first poses the stay-or-go question, the other seven monks respond in a variety of ways, some expressing their fear and desire to leave, others calmly expressing their lack of fear of death.
Because he doesn’t fear death, Brother Luc (Michael Lonsdale) says, “I am a free man.” This sounds triumphalist, but as the wonderfully laconic Lonsdale says the line, with a shrug, it registers as a simple statement of fact.
Beauvois takes us into their decision making process in a number of ways. He shows them deliberating among themselves. He shows them individually, deep in thought as they perform their farm tasks. He shows them praying desperately in their dark nights of the soul. But above all, he shows how their religious practices, their observances of ritual, help make the decision for them. Each man now understands the meanings of their prayers and haunting chants in a deeper way. So by the end they are ready to die as humans can be.
This depiction of religious life alone would be enough to make Of Gods and Men a great film. But it actually offers a good deal more, including elements about life and politics in the contemporary Islamic world that will resonant with non-Christian audiences. Specifically, it doesn’t demonize Islam, which Brother Christian has come to love. It doesn’t even put forward a blanket condemnation of the Islamists.
The story is told in a slow and meditative manner, which for this viewer at least was utterly absorbing. And it climaxes in a truly extraordinary scene. The brothers sit down for their Last Supper with wine and cheese that a visiting monk has brought from France, and brother Luc puts on an LP of Swan Lake, of all things. The camera then pans around the table, recording the brothers’ ecstatic faces, calling to mind Carl Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc, or an Old Master’s painting come to life.
They have found heaven on earth, and when they’re killed it doesn’t feel like that gift has been taken away from them.
