Of Gods and Men

The film’s final message of pluralism and empathy is forceful and direct, but the narrative also contains subtler ironies and troubling questions—about martyrdom, complicity, and unintended consequences—that it knows better than to try to answer. In the end, Of Gods and Men is a film about how you cannot live outside of history or pass through it unaffected.

This tale of a group of Christian monks harassed and eventually executed by Islamic extremists not only manages to get the politics of both sides straight, it also wades headfirst into the spiritual questions, rendering all of this remarkably thorny stuff with considerable aplomb. Also like Bresson on occasion, Beauvois knows he’s making a thriller and understands real ratcheted-up movie tension need not demolish a finely wrought intellectual superstructure.

…Regardless of [Beauvois’] high-minded intentions, OF GODS AND MEN succeeds at more basic levels—in its portrayals of procedure rather than “good works,” ritual rather than faith (especially in how the monks’ services and singing relate to their everyday experiences), and characters rather than ideas. A failure that is also, in its own way, a resounding victory.