(Des hommes et des dieux)
France 2010. Director: Xavier Beauvois
Cast: Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin, Philippe Laudenbach, Jacques Herlin
A powerful, poetic work rendered with great grace and intelligence, Xavier Beauvois’s Of Gods and Men won this year’s Grand Prix at Cannes (the festival’s second-highest honour), and has just been announced as France’s official submission to the upcoming 83rd Academy Awards. “Beauvois recounts the harrowing true story of a brotherhood of French monks in the highlands of North Africa who find themselves threatened by Islamic extremists during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s. Starring a gifted ensemble cast led by the empathetic Lambert Wilson (as resident religious scholar Brother Christian), the film begins as a bucolic chronicle of these simple men of God and their gentle relationship with their Muslim neighbours, to whom they provide much-needed medical care and other services. When the insurgents arrive, they find themselves faced with an impossible decision: to flee, or to stand their ground and fulfill their spiritual mission. Magnificently photographed by cinematographer Caroline Champetier in compositions that suggest Renaissance paintings, Of Gods and Men is a poetic, austerely beautiful triumph” (New York Film Festival). “A tour de force of ensemble acting . . . Keenly observed, empathetic and exalting” (Nick James, Sight and Sound). Colour, 35mm, in French and Arabic with English subtitles. 120 mins.
An evocative portrait of a young man coming of age during gloomy Soviet times, writer-director Gytis Lukšas’s adaptation of Romualdas Granauskas’s award-winning 2003 novel was Lithuania’s official Foreign Language Film submission to this year’s Oscars, and won a trio of Lithuania’s national film awards (the Silver Cranes) for its standout performances. “It’s a compliment to say the Lithuanian period drama Vortex might be mistaken for a Soviet-bloc feature of 40-50 years ago — its austere black-and-white beauty, deliberate pace and tender solemnity are of a piece with works from a great period in world cinema. . . His father killed returning from WWI, and a teenage best friend drowned in another accident, Juzik (Giedrius Kiela) nonetheless reaches adulthood with his country innocence and good faith intact. After military service, he works in a corrupt quarry where he becomes involved with two self-destructive women: boozing, promiscuous Klara (Yevgeniya Varenitsa); and insecure, much-victimized Maska (Oksana Borbat). Periodically, Juzik returns home to visit his lonely, aging mother (Jurate Onaitite). Structured in chapters . . . [Vortex] sports a gentle gravity that's winning, not least in Viktoras Radzevicius's luminous cinematography” (Dennis Harvey, Variety). B&W, 35mm, in Lithuanian and Russian with English subtitles. 140 mins.
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ADVANCE TICKETS
Available for credit card purchase on this website until 4pm the day of screening.
Screenings restricted to 18+ and require a Pacific Cinémathèque membership unless otherwise indicated.
Friday, Dec. 03 – 6:45 PM
