Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 153: Sun Jun 2

Hors Satan (Dumont, 2011) & Beyond The Hills (Mungiu, 2012): Rio Cinema, 12.45pm
A 'Good & Evil Double-Bill' pairs two of the best recent foreign releases here.

Chicago Reader review of Hors Satan:
A nameless man appears in a small farm town on the northern French coast, spending his days wandering the fields and praying. He finds an acolyte in a sulky young woman, commits a seemingly random murder, and has violent sex with a strange woman. That’s about it for the story of this 2011 French drama, which evokes the Old Testament in its opaque simplicity, and Bruno Dumont’s commanding, atheistic style--rooted in purposely empty wide-screen vistas and the inexpressive faces of his nonactors--doesn’t offer many clues as to its meaning. As with L’Humanité (1999), Dumont wants to give epic form to the longing for spirituality in a despiritualized world. I found the movie mind-blowing, though it will likely irritate as many viewers as it impresses.
Ben Sachs

Here is the trailer.

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Chicago Reader review of Beyond The Hills:
Raised in a German orphanage, Voichita has found peace as a novice in a Romanian convent, but her austere life is roiled by a visit from her unstable friend Alina, who has graduated from the same orphanage to a series of foster homes. In many ways this long, layered drama from writer-director Cristian Mungiu seems like a companion piece to his harrowing abortion story 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007); both movies trace the uneasy relationship between a survivor and her weak, dependent pal as they try to navigate a world of patriarchal oppression. Here that oppression is embodied by the Russian Orthodox priest who threatens to expel Voichita for her friend's volatile behavior, yet Mungiu complicates this overt critique of religion by hinting that both Voichita's devotion to God and Alina's clinging attachment to Voichita are driven by childhood sexual abuse.
J.R. Jones

Here is the trailer.

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