For a film with deep undercurrents of spirituality, "Of Gods and Men" can be, at times, jarringly soulless. While the terrain covered here could certainly be expanded into grand, sweeping drama, French director Xavier Beauvois opts instead to work on a smaller scale, one at a greater distance from his viewers, as the film has a pervasive sense of emotional remoteness, the source of both its beauty and its narrative frustrations. In crafting such an aesthetically dense, but emotionally sparse tale, Beauvois creates a portrait that is as alienating as it is impressive.
The film is set on the verge of the Algerian Civil War, setting the stage for the piecemeal action that unfolds around a brotherhood of Trappist monks transplanted from France and de facto caretakers of a nearby village. The characterization of the monks is quite minimal, painting them with broad strokes; they are stereotypically contemplative and tight-lipped. Their elected leader, Christian (Lambert Wilson), offers some solid ground as a protagonist of sorts and chief decision-maker, but even his characterization leaves something to be desired.
As the region begins to crumble into chaos amid episodes of brutal violence, a difficult decision arises for the monks: to stay and continue looking after their charges, risking death in the process, or return to the safety of the French mainland. The spiritual ramifications of each side of the issue form the backbone of the story that unfolds, as Christian and his brothers weigh these options against the hope of some de-escalation.
Thought, rather than action, is the name of the game. A few scattered council scenes, in which these possibilities are discussed at an open table, offer the clearest instances of forward drive, save for the occasional appearances of Ali Fayattia (Farid Larbi), leader of the militaristic uprising, who surfaces with palpable menace and a reminder that the stakes here are, quite starkly, life and death.
The trouble is that such a clear-cut division of the plot makes it feel, quite tangibly, as though the story is being switched on and off seemingly at random. The narrative becomes a sort of sputtering engine, roaring to life and moving forward compellingly, only to die out again. But even as the plot stumbles through fits and starts, the cinematography is gorgeous to take in.
Stately, wonderfully shot landscapes and gently roving frames perfectly mirror the internal lives of the monastic order but also provide concrete beauty to latch onto when their conflict seems deeply buried. These beautifully meditative scenes of seclusion and communion with nature, while unable to cohere the surrounding fragments of action, provide a much-needed polar star when the story itself proves too distant.
And that, in fact, is a surprisingly frequent occurrence. Beauvois' characters have been stripped of the means to take decisive action and thus become more the objects than the subjects of this tale. The film's authentic depiction of the monks' primarily silent existence prohibits the possibility of a stronger emotional rapport between viewer and character. With more straightforward, committed plotting, such a fault could be ameliorated, but linking the two minimalistic approaches proves more a weakness than a strength.
Ultimately, Beauvois indulges in a few too many anti-narrative tactics within one film to keep it entirely afloat. The lengthy establishing sequence — it's nearly 20 minutes before anything of consequence, or even remotely identifiable as a plot-point, happens — adds another strike in this regard. Separately, these elements work with subtle beauty, but together they cause the narrative to wilt.
And nowhere is the strange approach to plotting made more apparent than in the film's ending — or, rather, endings. There are no fewer than three separate plausible ending points, each gorgeous in its own right, and one making even more impressive use of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" than the entirety of last year's "Black Swan." But sewn together, they become something altogether less appealing. It's as if Beauvois couldn't decide on a conclusion and resigned himself to featuring all three, concurrently.
He's created individual moments of sublime beauty here, an impressive feat as it's just his third film, but they're marred by the manner in which they're fastened together. While it's almost impossible not to respect "Of Gods and Men," it is nonetheless challenging to be fully engaged by it. The experience is akin to an art exhibit at which the velvet rope is placed about a hundred feet further back than it should be — you can admire the beauty, but it's difficult to be moved when you're forbidden to come any closer.
