GermanFilms20May_Screen_107x304 27.04.12 08:13 Seite 1 REVIEWS
NEW GERMAN FILMS IN CANNES 2012
SUNDAY, 20 MAY
…………………………….................... 09:30 h
Riviera 4 Jonas Grosch
DIE LETZTE LÜGE THE LAST LIE 80 min
…………………………....................… 11:30 h
Riviera 4 Tina von Traben
POMMES ESSEN PATTY’S CATCHUP 86 min
…………………………....................… 13:30 h
Riviera 4 Cyrill Boss & Philipp Stennert
HAUS DER KROKODILE VICTOR AND THE SECRET OF CROCODILE MANSION 91 min
…………………………....................… 20:00 h
NEXT GENERATION
SHORT TIGER 2012 96 min
Star 2
Beyond The Hills Reviewed by Dan Fainaru
Spare, unadorned and strikingly shot, Cristian Mungiu’s film is an unusual rendering of a Romanian exorcism case and is bound to split both audience and critical opinions, some con- sidering it a major achievement and others criticising it for overlong pretentious sensationalism. But Beyond The Hills (Dupa Dealuri) will certainly not pass unnoticed. It is inspired by two non-fiction novels written by Tatiana
Niculescu Bran, a BBC correspondent who investigated the case of a young woman supposedly possessed by evil spirits in 2005 and who was tortured to death in a Romanian mon- astery to drive the devil out of her body. Mungiu’s script tack- les such major themes as love, faith and freedom of spirit versus rigid religion, ignorance and poverty, providing a fer- tile background for the inevitable ensuing conflicts. He has no outright heroes or villains, with each character
in Beyond The Hills sincerely believing he is right — the ulti- mate tragedy being therefore unavoidable. Wilful Alina (Flutur) returns to Romania to extricate her
docile orphanage friend, Voichita (Stratan), away from the grip of a remote Orthodox monastery in which she has found some sort of peace of mind. Alina wants Voichita to come with her to Germany, and cannot understand her friend’s reticence. When denied the one thing she wants most in life — Voichita’s company — Alina loses control of herself and has to be put in a hospital. Once she calms down, the doctors claim there is nothing more they can do for her and, since she has nowhere else to go to, she returns to the monastery to recuperate, despite the reservations of the head priest (Andri- uta), whose soft-spoken demeanour hides an iron fist. Alina’s fuse soon blows again and the priest allows him-
self to be persuaded into exorcising the evil spirit controlling her. He reads prayers while she is gagged and chained to a makeshift cross and, by the time the battle for her soul seems to have been won, her body has already given up. Moving at an unhurried pace Mungiu lavishes attention
on backdrop details that underline the particular character of the story, such as the rudimentary conditions the nuns live in (no running water and no electricity), the unpaved roads and the frozen winter landscape. Lacking feature-film experience, both stage actress Cris-
tina Flutur and former TV reporter Cosmina Stratan have been amazingly well-cast while Valeriu Andriuta’s assertive priest, the character closest to a villain, and Dana Tapalaga’s kind-hearted Mother Superior have a human dimension that comes through time and again, despite their utter submis- sion to the rules.
SCREEN SCORE ★★★★ COMPETITION
Rom-Fr-Bel. 2012. 150mins Director/screenplay/ producer CristianMungiu Production companies Mobra Films Co-production companies WhyNot Productions, Les Films du Fleuve, France 3 Cinéma, MandragoraMovies International sales Wild Bunch,
www.wildbunch.biz CinematographyOleg Mutu EditingMirceaOlteanu Production designer CalinPapura,Mihaela Poenaru Main cast Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur, Valeriu Andriuta, Dana Tapalaga, Catalina Harabagiu, GinaTandura, Vica Agache,Nora Covali, Dionisie Vitcu
GERMAN PAVILION · #124 · INTERNATIONAL VILLAGE phone +33-(0)4-92590180 · fax +33-(0)4-92590181
n 22 Screen International at Cannes May 20, 2012
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