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Fifteen years ago today, seven
French Trappist monks were abducted from their monastery, Notre-Dame de
l'Atlas, in Tibhirine, Algeria. An Islamist group, the GIA (Groupe Islamique
Armé), claimed responsibility for the kidnappings and demanded that several GIA
members be released from prison in exchange for the monk's release. Xavier
Beauvois's film Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men), which won the Grand
Prix at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival focuses not on the monks' deaths but on
their lives. Its pace is slow, deliberate - like the Gregorian chant that marks
the rhythm of the monks lives - and this is one of the film's virtues. No
high-speed chases here, no breathy love scenes - how refreshing! The beauty and
dignity of a few individuals' humble lives instead calls viewers to slow down,
to pay attention, to focus, to notice, to cherish the ordinary and discover in
it the extraordinary. One cannot appreciate this film without entering into the
monastic spirit of contemplation portrayed in it. Between scenes in which the
monks go to chapel to sing the liturgical hours - vespers, compline, lauds,
terce - we catch glimpses of their daily lives, lives imbued with a sense of
the sacred even during the most humble tasks. One brother mops the floor and
tends the garden; another, a physician by training, sees villagers in the
monastery clinic; the abbott, Christian studies the Koran, visits
with villagers, and tries to do right by his community. The peaceable and
mutually supportive nature of the monks' relationship with the Muslim villagers
is made clear in several scenes. There are touching moments scattered
throughout the film like small wildflowers in an open field. A young girl from
the village and the old doctor monk have a frank conversation about being in
love, dispelling the stereotype of the inexperienced or repressed celibate who
knows little of such matters. The abbott opens the door to the cell of a monk
who has fallen asleep snoring over his book and folds the sleeping monk's
glasses for him. The monks gather with each other after a stressful moment
while the doctor sutures one of them and the oldest gently rubs the youngest on
the shoulders, trying to destress him in a paternal gesture of protectiveness.
The monks are saintly but imperfect. While washing some dishes one of them says
to the other, "F... you!" after taking a humorously-uttered statement
the wrong way. The brothers sometimes overhear each other's prayers in their
cells, and some of their prayers are wracked with doubt and fear. The abbott
makes an executive decision without input from the others, and they call him on
it. Later the community comes together on more than one occasion to discuss
whether they should leave Algeria, and the villagers they have come to love, in
light of the rising violence and danger in the region. There are no easy
answers for them, and each day brings tests of faith, small and large, with
which to wrestle. In one of the most powerful moments in the film, the abbott,
Christian, finds himself face to face with terrorists who have invaded the
monastery. His exemplary courage, calm, and respectfulness under pressure were
inspiring beyond words. Like a meditative chant that lingers in the mind and
keeps coming back hours and days later, Of Gods and Men is a film that
permeates and stays with you. It's like that gentle whisper in which the
prophet Elijah finds the presence of God outside the cave in Mt. Horeb. The
Divine is not in the clamor of the tempestuous, earth-shattering wind, or in
the earthquake, or in the fire, but rather in the stillness, in the quiet voice
found in peace and silence ■
