Tuesday 14 October 2014

Faith in Film

Is it just me or have all the best films recently been set in closed religious communities? There was Of Gods and Men, a wonderful film. Then there was Beyond the Hills, equally wonderful. And now we have Ida, which I've written about here.

Perhaps it is the contrast between the way we live currently and the aspirations of those who choose a religious life that makes monasteries and nunneries such interesting settings. Unspoken questions rise up from stories concerning people who have made choices so radically different from those we are encouraged to think of as normal, people who have such different goals from those we are taught we ought to have.

Anyway, I went to see Ida and I enjoyed it far more than I enjoyed Gone Girl. I thought that, if Thomas Hardy had made films instead of writing novels, Ida is the kind of film he might have made.


I'm sure Gone Girl will make far more money than Ida but that, sadly, is life.

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