The Silent World

Having inspired swathes of oceanographers and documentary makers from Steve Zissou to David Attenborough, Jacques Cousteau was a true trailblazer in the world of underwater filmmaking. And now, more than fifty years after its initial release, this groundbreaking feature is available for home audiences on DVD and Blu-ray. But in the face of modern technology and filming techniques, can Cousteau’s 1954 Oscar winner still hold its own?

Set on board the good ship Calypso, The Silent World follows Cousteau and co-director Louis Malle on their mission to capture the hitherto unseen beauty of the deeps on camera.

Filmed in glorious Technicolor, the film reveals the unseen world and a wealth of life which was brand new to the original audience.

Life on board the boat is both a voyage of discovery and an adventure, as the crew utilise aqualung technology to film deeper than ever before, capturing shark attacks, shipwrecks and a sense of boundless possibility…

The film opens with a stunning descent to the depths, as five bare-chested divers swim through a vivid blue expanse. Each carries a flaming torch, somehow burning despite being submerged. Huge gas plumes rise above them as the commentary announces that “this is a motion-picture studio 65 feet under the sea.” It’s an intriguing opening, beautifully framed and impressive so many years after the event – largely because it leaves an audience accustomed to wetsuits and cutting edge diving equipment, wondering how it’s possible to survive and film at such depths with underwater flares and antiquated oxygen tanks.

The divers are compared to spacemen and it’s easy to see why. Their movements are not typically human and their environment is utterly alien. With the seabed illuminated by large floodlights, the blue water is punctuated by corals and crustaceans of bright reds and oranges – a natural contrast to the burning orange flares which previously lit their way. But upon surfacing, the crew become merely human again. And their humanity is in stark contrast to the natural beauty they left below the ocean’s surface.

Cousteau is a bronzed, hard-bodied figure. His leathery skin and lean frame make him look rather like one of the sea-creatures he seeks to film – and he’s seemingly less comfortable on deck than he is underwater. Despite giving a fascinating insight into the cameras and filming apparatus which allowed their early forays beneath the waves, it is the ethical and environmental choices made by Cousteau and his crew which jar with a modern audience.

Despite describing the ‘50s as a “golden age” for underwater exploration, much of Cousteau’s aim in this film seems to be the exploitation of the natural resources. Perhaps hindsight and greater knowledge of the natural world are responsible for the uncomfortable feeling which accompanies watching a man hitching a ride on a turtle or dynamiting a coral reef, but it’s impossible to imagine that someone as well versed in the relationship between mankind and marine life failed to realise how wrong it is to interfere in such a way. And such misgivings are nothing compared to those which accompany the film’s most disturbing scene…

Following a huge pod of sperm whales, the Calypso follows them through the ocean. Sadly, a young calf is pulled under the boat and into its propellers. Bleeding heavily, it is unlikely to survive, so Cousteau makes the decision to pull it alongside the ship and put it out of its misery by shooting it. The water around the ship is red with blood and, predictably, begins to attract sharks. These scavengers of the sea tear the whale to pieces. Whilst this might be difficult for some viewers to watch, it is not nearly as uncomfortable as seeing the Calypso’s crew dragging these sharks onto the boat’s deck and hacking at them with axes and crowbars.

It’s a sickeningly unnecessary display of vengeance. But what are they seeking revenge for? Animals attacking and eating an animal which has already died – and at their hands? Whilst the footage is dramatic, it is utterly contrived and completely barbaric. It serves no purpose, and even their relative lack of knowledge cannot defend them against accusations of opportunism and bloodlust.

Punctuating the documentary are some truly excruciating scenes of ‘faux reality’. Much like those seen in reality TV pap like The Only Way Is Essex, The Silent World features some heightened versions of reality. Rehearsed and acted, these come across as being uncomfortable and unnatural for everyone involved. It’s a shame that the conventions of the time didn’t allow for a more realistic portrayal of everyday events – the watching audience would have been afforded a much more interesting window into the truth of Cousteau’s adventures were it not for these parodies of reality.

There are some wonderful episodes, though. A pod of dolphins is captured playfully swimming alongside the Calypso, and an underwater wreck is explored in exquisite and understated detail. Combined with Cousteau’s infectious (although often misplaced) enthusiasm, this ensures that there is enough of interest here to ensure that it remains a historically and cinematically interesting piece.

The Silent World is little more than a period piece, serving to remind us how far our knowledge and understanding of the natural world has developed in the last half century. Whilst Cousteau shone a light on how fascinating life in the oceans is, he never really illuminated it. That this was due to ignorance or the lack of necessary technology is a moot point: whilst we have the likes of the BBC producing nature programmes like The Blue Planet, we will only ever need to view Jacques Cousteau as relic and a reminder of how far we’ve come.

La Piscine

More than forty years after its original cinematic release, La Piscine has been newly restored. Starring Alain Delon and Jane Birkin, it’s a sensual film about a crime of passion set in the oppressive heat of a St Tropez summer.

Jean-Paul and Marianne are an attractive couple enjoying a lazy poolside holiday. They are joined by Harry, a successful record producer, friend and former lover of Marianne. With him is Penelope, his teenage daughter – to whom Jean-Paul takes an obvious shine. Marianne and Harry, meanwhile, also appear to harbour a lingering attraction to one another.

After days of simmering sexual tension, things finally come to a head. During a drunken altercation, one of the party is left floating face down in the swimming pool: a tragic victim of the seething resentment and sexual politics on display.

Can the remaining relationships survive the death? And will the perpetrator be brought to justice?

La Piscine aims from the start to display its overt sexuality on screen. Opening with Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) and Marianne (Romy Schneider) by the pool, director Jacques Deray immediately throws the audience into the midst of their passionate relationship. Both are close to naked, their beautiful bronzed flesh glistening in the sunlight. They kiss and hold each other in a show of blatant sexuality which borders on the masochistic, as Jean-Paul aggressively scratches Marianne’s back. Perhaps a portent of things to come occurs when he provides evidence of his misogyny: throwing her into the pool before rudely spitting water at her.

It’s a very handsome movie. Not only are the stars beautiful, but the design of the piece has focused specifically on bright, clean blocks of colour. The blue of the pool, the verdant green countryside and the vividly coloured towels are loud and vibrant – an almost hyper-real palate.

Into the middle of this beauty comes Harry (Maurice Ronet), a record producer and former lover of Marianne. He brings with him Penelope (Jane Birkin), his rather sullen teenage daughter. It rapidly becomes clear that their presence is set to upset the equilibrium – not least when it’s made apparent that Marianne and Harry have been lovers in the past. Jean-Paul’s determination to gain a measure of revenge for this is hinted at very early, as he aggressively ascertains Penelope’s age – his intentions are clearly not noble.

Birkin is clearly too old to be playing an 18-year-old girl, and her performance reflects that fact. She tries far too hard to appear carefree and youthful, skipping around looking quite ridiculous. It’s actually quite jarring – the film is initially very sexually charged, and she undermines this. For the purposes of the plot, it would hardly have mattered if the character had been older – or if Deray had ordered Birkin to rein in her unsubtle performance. As it is, Jean-Paul’s early sexual aggression and Marianne’s submission remain largely unexplored after Penelope’s entrance – arguably the film’s most interesting aspect is abandoned.

One of the key flaws with the film is that Jean-Paul finds Penelope attractive at all. It’s evident from what’s shown on-screen initially that he and Marianne have an extremely sexual relationship – and she’s a very beautiful woman. Penelope is portrayed very clearly as a naive child, and is not nearly as sensual or fanciable as Marianne. Despite the power struggle being waged between the three adults, it’s difficult to believe that even someone as reactive and masochistic as Jean-Paul could obtain any pleasure from such a relationship.

When the jealousies and rivalries finally boil over, a murder takes place. But it’s not a convincing one. Some really half-hearted violence is followed by a protracted episode in the titular swimming pool, which is indecisive, unthreatening and unexciting. The build up to this incident lacks any passion, and there’s no real catalyst for it. But for the tragic outcome, it’s actually quite comedic – surely not the effect Deray was aiming for.

The death doesn’t actually occur until 80 minutes into the movie, which highlights another of the production’s flaws: it would be perfectly possible to trim thirty minutes from the running time of La Piscine without having any detrimental effect. Far too many scenes do too little to develop the plot or relationships. Obviously, nobody wants to see movies which concentrate wholly on plot rather than character, but here the balance is wrong – especially given how shallow some of the characters are. And after spending so long meandering to the death scene, the pace doesn’t pick up afterwards. Instead, a plodding investigation takes place, which is, quite frankly, boring.

La Piscine is a sumptuous film to look at: the cinematography is impressive and the cast beautiful. Sadly, the storyline is thin – and stretched even thinner over the two hour running time. With little action, director Deray relies on his cast of characters to sustain the audience’s interest, but beneath the surface beauty they are pretty uninteresting, like La Piscine itself.

High Lane

The horror genre remains as popular as ever, but new concepts remain elusive. Truly original ideas seem to remain the preserve of Asian filmmakers – with western directors only too pleased to pounce upon and remake the best of what Japan and Korea have to offer. So the prospect of a French production filmed in picturesque Croatia offers a tantalising glimpse of something we haven’t yet seen.

High Lane tells the tale of five friends on a climbing trip with a difference. In the beautiful mountains of Croatia, they attempt to follow a trail which has already been hammered into the rocks – metal steps and rungs protrude from the sheer cliff faces and bridges are strung across the gullies and valleys. Danger is mitigated by the safety lines which follow the trail and from which the climbers can attach their harnesses.

Happy couple Fred and Karine are the experienced climbers leading their friends through the terrain. Loic and Chloé are less assured on the rock face – and face a challenge to their happiness from Chloé’s former love, Guillame, the fifth member of the party. With the trail closed for repairs, the quintet plough on regardless – with tensions rising between them, the path becoming increasingly dangerous and the threat of a mysterious figure stalking them through the mountains…

From the very outset, it’s apparent that High Lane offers little that hasn’t been seen before. With only five characters listed in the opening credits, it’s easy to start guessing which of the small cast might be bumped off first – and whether the villain might be an unlisted cameo, a la Kevin Spacey in Se7en. This feeling is only confirmed when the five characters are revealed – a typically predictable combination of brooding machismo, endearing geekiness and utterly unsuitable clothing.

It does the filmmakers no credit whatsoever to suggest that the film is set in Croatia, either. It clearly isn’t filmed anywhere near Croatia, and given that the location makes no difference to the storyline, it was a strange decision to make such a big deal of it. As it is, the spectacular scenery is the film’s true star and didn’t need any embellishment – the gorgeous vistas and truly scary rock faces speak loudly enough for themselves.

The scenery certainly steals the show in the first half hour of the movie. Some jaw-dropping camera shots show the sheer rock faces at their scariest, the lush greens of the forest canopy are utterly beautiful, and a sense of how dangerous nature can be pervades the action. Yet director Abel Ferry seems determined to dispense with the setting and concentrate on character – a decision which was, at best, misguided.

Rarely have a collection of characters been more generic. Adrenaline junkie Fred (Nicolas Giraud) and his doting girlfriend Karine (Maud Wyler) provide the sense of adventure, busty Chloé (Fanny Valette) proves that wearing a low-cut vest and wonderbra need be no impediment to physical activity, whilst her meek boyfriend Loic (Johan Libéreau) cowers in the shadow of Chloé’s ex – the swarthy and charismatic Guillame (Raphaël Lenglet). They’re exactly the kind of lazy caricatures which you would expect to feature in an uninspiring horror flick. And so it proves.

Initially, there is some tension in the exploits of the fivesome, as they traverse the mountain and deal with the associated dangers. One scene in particular, as they cross a rickety bridge, brings a genuine sense of peril – not least because, by that point, it feels like about time one of the characters copped it. But from that moment, Ferry appears to have given up on trying to create genuine scares: instead he switches his attention to the kind of villainy seen in dozens of generic horror flicks of this nature. From the moment that the seemingly motiveless woodsman/killer appears on the scene, High Lane takes a terminal turn for the worse. If it was predictable before, it becomes even more so.

There’s nothing remarkable or interesting about the mad man terrorising the teens: he’s so underdeveloped that the best name they could think to call him was ‘Anton’. And there’s nothing remarkable or interesting about the predictable fight for survival which ensues – existing relationships between the characters are mirrored in their actions, fight scenes run according to expectations, and Anton’s ‘lair’ is a lazy constructed cliché.

Add to this some seemingly incongruous flashback sequences and an excruciating pair of scenes in which the cast sing Supergrass’ ‘Alright’ (maybe it’s less excruciating in non-English speaking countries), and you’ve got a film which seems confused as to what it wants to be or who it intends to appeal to.

High Lane is a film which took a wrong turn. If Ferry had focused on the dangers of nature, making the most of the threatening mountainous terrain and added a soupcon of psychological drama to proceedings, he might have walked away with a half-decent horror film in the can. As it is, the director seems to lose his nerve halfway through, resulting in a clichéd and predictable slasher-by-numbers which will entertain some, but will excite nobody.

The French Guy

Director Ann Marie Fleming has claimed that The French Guy is inspired by true events. Designed as an exploration of love and violence, she describes the film as an attempt to explore the impossible goal we all share: the desire to control our environment.

As a French artist struggles to complete his masterpiece, his concentration is repeatedly disrupted by strange sounds coming from his neighbour’s apartment. That neighbour is Elizabeth – a woman who’s recently been discharged from hospital following major brain surgery.

Elizabeth wanders along a beach in a strange funk – her mind apparently severely affected by the procedure she’s undergone. When she spots a distressed musician throwing his guitar into the sea and apparently willing to throw himself in, too, Elizabeth immediately decides to take the disorientated man under her wing. She takes him home in order to nurse him back to health only for an allergic reaction to cause an attack of paranoia which sees her wrapping her entire apartment in clear plastic. And when a mishap with her new man spirals into a murderous rampage, it’s apparent that Elizabeth’s good intentions have gone horribly and gruesomely wrong…

It’s certainly an interesting premise for a film: the idea of a seemingly normal person undergoing surgery which turns them into a killer could have made for a gruesomely gothic horror, a superb farce or a blackly comic tale. Sadly, it’s none of these. Rather, it takes a little of each genre and throws them together in a mish-mash of styles and ideas which never really gels.

The French Guy opens promisingly with an extreme close-up of a gaping wound being stitched up. Gummy blood seeps from the cut as it’s closed with bright blue stitching. It’s an arresting image, and slightly disconcerting given that it occurs without context and before the credits. Unfortunately, the film never lives up to the shocking opening seconds.

Lead character Elizabeth (Babs Chula) is very difficult to warm to. She’s neither funny nor charming – and without developing a genuine feeling for her, it’s difficult to care much for her ongoing plight. Perhaps this is due to Elizabeth being deliberately bewildered and confused by a situation which has seen her discharged from hospital 24 hours after what seems to have been some kind of lobotomy. It’s a plot contrivance which is as confusing for the audience as it is for the character.

Her increasing paranoia over her head wound becoming infected is probably the most successful portion of the film – a couple of stylish scenes see flowers dispensing sneeze-inducing pollen in minute close-up and the apartment Elizabeth lives in filmed being cleaned from floor level. But the suave visuals and original ideas dry up from this point on.

Instead, the action is filmed fairly straightforwardly and the story becomes increasingly preposterous. A recurring lockjaw injury sees Elizabeth and her unnamed houseguest caught in a clinch which belongs in the likes of Dumb & Dumber but ends in bloodshed more appropriate to an extreme Asian action film. In other hands, this might have worked, but director Ann Marie Fleming seems to be unsure what genre her film belongs in and it straddles them extremely clumsily.

What follows is an increasingly repetitive and predictable procession of characters visiting the apartment, meeting sticky ends or coming close to uncovering the gruesome truth. It’s utterly contrived and fairly silly. At one point, a string quartet appear in the flat for extremely tenuous reasons, only for their screeching violins to accompany a vicious scissors-based murder. It’s a homage to Psycho which would see Hitchcock turning in his grave.

Worse still than the join-the-dots plot is the titular French Guy. It’s fair to say that his character has absolutely no relevance to the story. He’s a stereotypical French caricature: beret, striped t-shirt, a baguette under his arm and an arrogant artistic temperament. Occasionally, the action cuts to him as he listens to the grunting, groaning and moaning occurring in the next-door apartment whilst trying to paint his life model (who’s dressed as a French maid). These scenes serve no purpose, add nothing to the plot, and couldn’t even be considered comedic. There’s nothing funny about watching a stereotype making a tarte tatin.

As the film plods to its inevitable and obvious conclusion (via a truly appalling and misguided dream sequence), one can only wonder what might have been. A promising opening and a great idea have been transformed into a turgid, cliché laden lump of a movie. Writer/director Fleming might have had a singular artistic vision, but she really needed someone to rein her in and help her develop her ideas into a more cohesive whole. It would be easy to imagine something truly dark coming from a germ of an idea such as this: a giallo-style study of Elizabeth’s mental unravelling; a bleakly gothic horror; a blackly comic vision… It’s none of these – it’s too light of tone and too inconsistent.

There’s a good film in here somewhere. Sadly, it’s buried too far beneath the surface of this clumsily constructed and stylistically confused picture. The Canadian film industry is hardly world renowned, and The French Guy is a strong editor or producer away from being close to changing that situation. A sad waste of a good idea.

Benda Bilili!

Staff Benda Bilili were a sensational hit at international music festival WOMAD in 2010 and have scooped up world music prizes at festivals and shows across Europe. But their success did not come easily. Benda Bilili! charts their remarkable journey from homelessness on the streets of Kinshasa, Congo to the release of their first album and subsequent tour. What makes their journey still more remarkable is that the majority of the group are paraplegic.


Renault Barret and Florent de La Tullaye’s documentary charts the journey taken by the group from their rehearsals in Kinshasa zoo through the making of their album Tres Tres Fort, the recruitment of charismatic frontman Roger and their journey through Europe.

Originally conceived as a video-blog to accompany the record, the various setbacks and crisis’s which beset the project meant that the increasingly dramatic narrative and charismatic cast of characters demanded it be turned into a feature length release…

The film opens with the group living a hand-to-mouth existence in a cramped and ramshackle shelter. Struck with polio, many of them are crippled from the waist down: their withered limbs hang limp beneath their bodies. It’s immediately apparent, however, that their physical disabilities will not handicap them: the opening scene is a joyous dance by a smiling man carrying all his weight on his flip-flop clad hands. It’s an energetic opening and a masterful piece of editing – the audience is informed from the outset that this is a documentary which will see obstacles overcome by an inspiring cast.

Chief among these is Papa Ricky, band leader and surrogate father. He’s a thoroughly engaging presence. Gentle and sweet voiced, yet cynical and hard edged. His devotion to his band is absolute – at various points he puts them ahead of his family – but only as he sees the group as offering hope and salvation to so many. His family will hopefully benefit, too, from the ‘dough’ which eventually rolls in through royalties. He’s afforded respect by all those around him – perhaps due to the protective net he casts around those closest to him. When he is crossed by a ‘villager’ who stares at the camera crew, they are given a fearful tongue lashing. It’s a powerful and unexpected display of his personality and one the camera crew would have been delighted to have captured.

Despite the fatherly affections of Ricky, it’s clear that the members of Staff Benda Bilili are more than capable of self-sufficiency. Hand-pedalling around Kinshasa on their modified tricycles, they look like distant cousins of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda’s Easy Riders. Their resilience and ability to find joy in their difficult lives is truly inspirational. A wonderful illustration of this occurs at a ‘football’ match played between fellow polio sufferers. Unable to use their legs, they slalom around the dusty pitch on their hands, colliding at speed with one another yet demonstrating enormous skill. When a goal is scored with an acrobatic flying volley, a spontaneous pitch invasion occurs. It’s a lovely moment, as daily hardship is forgotten in an outpouring of unbridled joy.

In the main, Barret and de La Tullaye’s style is to remain as invisible as possible. They stay away from the action and offer little in the way of exposition. A brief voiceover explains their role as facilitators and financers, but, otherwise, they are not seen or heard. This hands-off approach serves the piece very well, as the inhabitants of Kinshasa are more than capable of making their thoughts and feelings known – and the action is more than capable of speaking for itself.

The directors do, sadly, take a couple of wrong turns. There are two scenes in the documentary which feel rather contrived. The first, a discussion of religion and the role of Adam and Eve in the creation of sin seems unlikely between the teenage protagonists and has a whiff of political agenda about it. Still more staged is a conversation between two youngsters about Europe. Although it contains some poetic ideas and imagery – not least comparing being stuck in Congo with being like caged birds – it jars badly. The film makes its point extremely eloquently without needing to resort to cheap (and obvious) fakery like this.

Letting the action speaks for itself certainly serves Barret and de La Tullaye well in the film’s most poignant scene. With the band away from home recording their album, their shelter burns to the ground. Nothing can be saved. Letting the stark truth linger as they record a phone-call between Ricky and his wife is understated filmmaking at its best. And Ricky’s stoic reaction is typical of a man with an utter conviction in the redemptive power of the music he creates.

The only other character who can rival Ricky in the charisma stakes is Roger. Discovered aged 12, he grows up on screen over the course of the five years it took to film Benda Bilili! and his journey is the most remarkable of all. He was discovered by the directors playing his santonge: an instrument devised by Roger himself, consisting of an empty tin can, a wooden handle and a guitar string. It’s capable of an amazing range of tones and Roger is a virtuoso at playing it. Charting Roger’s adolescence is arguably the filmmaker’s greatest achievement. The only time they refer back to the past is when they cut a scene of the 12-year-old Roger into later footage. It’s a brilliantly effective way of showing exactly how far he’s come from precocious child to Hendrix-aping frontman.

Having being filmed over such a long period of time, it’s possible to see and hear the maturing of Staff Benda Bilili very clearly. As well as Roger growing up in front of the camera, the band’s music improves noticeably over the length of the documentary. Their hilarious, perennially stoned and thoroughly uplifting journey into the unknown world of Europe is wonderfully documented and punctuated by powerful and polished performances in front of adoring crowds – and the Argentinean ambassador.

Benda Bilili! is a thoroughly uplifting documentary about an inspirational group of people who’ve transcended disability, poverty and hardship to triumph against the odds. It’s telling that this charismatic and charming group grabbed the attention of the directors from the outset and practically forced them to make this wonderful film. Filled with brilliant music and colourful characters, it’s a remarkable, life-affirming and uplifting.

Of Gods And Men

After winning the Grand Prix at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, Of Gods And Men has now become France’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Oscars. Directed by Xavier Beauvois and based on the true story of seven French Trappist monks mysteriously beheaded in Algeria in 1996, the film focuses primarily on the events leading up to their deaths.

Set in rural North Africa, the movie is centred on a quiet monastery overlooking a quiet village. The eight monks who live within have developed a warm relationship with the villagers, dispensing advice and selling them their produce. More importantly, one of the monks, Luc (Michael Lonsdale), is a practicing doctor offering free out-patients treatment to the locals.

Their part in the peaceful community is threatened when Islamic Fundamentalists began to cause trouble in the region – culminating in the massacre of a group of Croatian construction workers. When the terrorists later seek medical attention at the monastery – following an unrelated incident – a moral dilemma over whether they should treat them occurs. This is the least of their problems, however, as it becomes increasingly apparent that their lives are in danger and their faith will be strongly tested…

Of Gods And Men is an understated, nuanced film. There are no set pieces, no dramatic speeches, no unnecessary flourishes. It opens simply, showing the quietly contemplative monks praying and singing. It’s an early indication of the measured simplicity of Beauvois’ approach to the subject matter. He efficiently establishes the warmth of the relationship between the monks and the villagers by following a young Algerian as he moves in and around the monastery, greeting the Frenchmen and chatting idly with them. It’s a clever scene, quickly introducing a rich cast of characters, a sense of their lifestyle and the community which exists between the Trappists and the Muslims.

Further illustrating the point, a wonderful tete-a-tete between Luc and a local girl makes explicit the respect in which the monks are held. She asks him what it feels like to be in love and his response indicates that he has had a substantial life prior to his being ordained as a monk. Luc’s evocative description of the emotions love engenders is utterly endearing and cleverly played – initially it seems that Luc’s love is for God. It’s only in the latter part of the conversation that it is made explicit that he has been in love a number of times prior to his finding God – his truest love. These hints at a previous life (and the fact that he is a doctor) are the only clues we are given to any of the monks’ back-stories.

Lonsdale is fabulous as the gruff Luc – Of Gods And Men is a film worth watching if only for the joy of seeing an ensemble cast of elderly men lighting up the screen with their very presence. The performances are uniformly excellent, suffused with warmth and sensitivity. Lived-in, wrinkled faces are well equipped to convey the quiet emotion contained within this film – a rueful smile, a slight wince or a crinkling of the eyes says as much as a thousand scripted words. Every single actor – regardless of the size of their role – imbues their character with an individuality created entirely through their own skill (even the sparse clothing of the monks offers no scope for individuality). A perfect example of this is Amédée (Jacques Herlin), the oldest of the monks, who probably has the least to say. Herlin‘s performance is pitch perfect – a beguiling mixture of tenderness, confusion and tolerance conveyed almost wordlessly through his expressive face.

As things become increasingly fraught, and the danger to the lives of the monks become increasingly tangible, their faith is tested and their resolve questioned. As they toy with the idea of leaving the monastery, they each have their own crises of confidence: how can there be a God in a world so cruel; do they belong in the wider world; can they abandon the village when it needs them most? Beauvois’ stance is to maintain a position of neutrality meaning that despite the enormous part which religion plays in the movie, enjoying it requires no religious faith on the behalf of the viewer. As the monks discuss their predicament and come to terms with their position, faith and religious belief are obviously at the head of the agenda. Yet the fact that they have such difficult decisions to make – even in the light of their religiousness – is not glossed over. One of them even invokes Pascal’s famous assertion that “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.”

The scene for which the film will be most remembered sees the monks gathered around a table sharing red wine. To say too much might give away the denouement of the story, but it’s safe to say that it’s one of the most wonderful scenes committed to celluloid in recent years as music from Swan Lake plays over their silent thoughts. The soundtrack might lack subtlety, but the performances do not. As the camera sweeps around the table, it seems to capture the inner thoughts of each participant. There is joy, sadness and – above all – love visible on every face. It’s a scene drenched in emotion and an acting masterclass from all concerned. Truly magnificent stuff.

Of Gods And Men is a beautifully made film, eschewing the high drama contained in the source material in favour of quiet contemplation and a celebration of humanity which, although informed by religion, is not defined by it. The calm, quiet direction allows the marvellous individual performances room to take the limelight – and they are thoroughly deserving of it.