Friday, December 14, 2012
HOSTAGE
Today's film was the Cannes Grand Prize winner
I kept putting off seeing this because of the subject matter. A sort of true rendition of the hostage taking of seven Cistercian monks by an unknown terrorist group during the bad times in the 90s.
Actually, it is a fine film and has nothing to be afraid of. These are gentle men who have to decide to stay with their mission to the Algerian village their monastery is, in fact, responsible for starting and maintaining, or leave for safety.
It is not that they are naive. They are actually between the government, a repressive bunch of bastards, and the "rebels" which are a mix of jihadists and just plain thugs.
It amounts to a character study unless you want to parse the lessons of the gospels. Which I do not.
I could opt out of the religious part, which is not too heavy duty, and see this as people in a moral dilemma.
The outcome is known in advance. They will be taken and then killed because the french government will not release their prisoners. The usual stuff for people in the middle.
I was astonished to learn a great deal about monastic life and practice. Very nice.
There are even some sympathetic terrorists. In a way. But the signs are there almost from the beginning. There is only one result from the end game.
I would not want to see it again but I am glad that I saw it. A 3 out of Netflix5 although as a film it does rate pretty high. Just not for me again. No way.
Labels: films
