Of Gods and Men

By Mark Salter
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
March 30, 2011

"There is a moment in every great story," Flannery O'Connor explained to a friend, "in which the presence of grace can be felt as it waits to be accepted or rejected, even though the reader may not recognize this moment."

The moment is hard to miss in the spellbinding "Of Gods and Men," France's official entry for best foreign language film at the 2011 Oscars. Nevertheless, like O'Connor's undiscerning readers, the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences failed to recognize it or were unaffected by it. Despite its many reverent reviews in the U.S. and its box office success in Europe, the Academy ignored the picture entirely; declining to include it even on its preliminary list of nominees.

Based on the true story of French monks at a Trappist monastery in Algeria's Atlas Mountains who were murdered by Islamist insurgents during Algeria's civil war in the 1990s, "Of Gods and Men" offers no political or historical argument. An Algerian government official complains as he urges the monks to return to France that the terror that threatens them is yet another consequence of France's former colonial presence in his country. Not another moment in the movie concerns itself with political disputes. Its subject is piety -- and the love, servility and sacrifice it compels.

The one insurgent who has a featured role is portrayed sympathetically in his interaction with Brother Christian, the monastery's prior. Each man quotes passages from the Koran in an effort to forge a mutual respect that might delay, if not for long, the savage expression of a political antagonism that claims religious authority.

The film plays like a liturgy. The days pass alike. The monks rise before dawn. Tired and silent, they dress in their robes for Mass. They study the testaments. They eat in silence and see to their work dressed as laborers; tending gardens and beehives, caring for villagers in the monastery's modest clinic. They chant their devotions in their affecting, though not otherworldly harmonies.

They are not removed from the world. They are the foundation of the small Muslim community they protect. They are involved in its daily life. They don't proselytize. They serve man's worldly needs. As one villager observes, "We are the birds; you are the branch. If you leave, we will lose our footing."

The moments when grace waits to be accepted or rejected arrive as the brothers struggle toward their decision: whether to flee to safety or stay and face almost certain death. Some are adamant they should stay. Some want to go. Others grope to understand God's purpose for them. All are afraid. None see martyrdom as glory.

The grace of the film is in the honesty and power of its performances, the unromanticized humanity of the characters these gifted actors convey so compellingly. They flash anger. They are confused. They reveal glimpses of cowardice. They give in to despair. They acquiesce modestly to the fate their faith has brought them. Those portrayals, and the tension and austere beauty the director, Xavier Beauvois, infuses in almost every scene, no matter how ritualistic or ordinary the action, make the film utterly enthralling.

No scene in the film is more mesmerizing than one near the end that alludes to the Last Supper; when the monks, having resolved to stay, feel grace descend and fill their hearts. They gather for their evening meal, and Brother Luc, the monastery's physician, played by the extraordinary Michael Lonsdale, opens bottles of wine, and presses play on an old tape recorder that fills the room with Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Through the experience of worldly pleasures, the monks' expressive faces convey with a dignity that sacrifices none of their humility, a spiritual transformation that is impossible to express in language. Only the visual arts and music can manage it effectively.

No one speaks. The camera pans slowly from face to face. This one exhausted; another ancient; that one careworn; this one pensive; perplexed; afraid. And then, as Tchaikovsky's ballet swells to its climax, contentment, joy, love.

Why aren't movies like this made here? I don't mean that as a typical conservative rant against Hollywood, but as an appeal to action. Perhaps the power brokers in Hollywood believe that for all the advanced alchemy of modern filmmaking, their talents are ill-suited to conveying a transcendent spiritual experience. Maybe the studio's accountants can show that American moviegoers prefer that they treat heroes romantically or cynically, but not as earnest people, struggling unostentatiously with their convictions. As for the snub by the Academy on Oscar night, maybe they were put off by - or didn't comprehend -an overt religious message.

But in the full theater where I watched "Of Gods and Men" on a recent Saturday afternoon, no one left their seat before the credits finished rolling. No one applauded. No one exclaimed their approval or disapproval to another. Everyone left slowly and quietly, looking stunned, as I was, by the power of the magnificent art we had shared.

It's unlikely they were all Catholics or confessors of any faith. Even without faith, the human heart responds to the message that great art can convey: we are saved by love so that we will love, and have the courage for it.

Mark Salter is the former chief of staff to Senator John McCain and was a senior adviser to the McCain for President campaign.