Audience Member
152 minutes of very straight forward telling with really one-note characters with no arcs for said characters all while being shot in static fashion. The sole driving force of this picture is the direction and it's piercing narrative that smartly avoids bias or on-the-nose preachiness.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
Full Review
nefasto r
"Beyond the HIlls" is about faith against reason, love against love, sanity against craziness, bleak against bleaker, and most importantly: a bore! Painfully slow, so difficult for me to finish it, and when I did I cannot say it was worth it. I did like "Graduation", that Cristian Mungiu wrote, but as a director I really cannot stand him. "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" had the same effect on me, and I will think twice before watching his next work.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
A powerful drama about faith and the life in the mountains of Romania. It also reminds me much of Denis Diderot's The Nun.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/25/23
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Audience Member
Of all the many, many foreign language films I have seen, only a sparse handful are from Romania, but every one of them has impressed me with their rich detail, and their sensibilities to the lives of people in their country. Beyond the Hills, directed by Cristian Mungiu (who also did the masterful 2007 film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) continues in that pattern. It tells the story of two young women, longtime friends who grew up together in an orphanage. Their lives have taken very different paths while they've been apart. One, Voichita, played by Cosmina Stratan, has found a calling as a nun in a Romanian convent; the other, Alina, played by Cristina Flutur, has lived in Germany for work, and once they reunite there's a tension from the start. The person that each has become, conflict with the relations they used to have to each other-relations of a deeper sort at least one of them wants to rekindle once more.
While both young ladies staying at the convent, Alina is impatient with her friend's Orthodox piousness, and angry with the other nuns and the head priest there, and she acts outs erratically and at times violently. Voichita meanwhile tries to make Alina find her way in God. Both these performances, of almost polar-opposite tones, come in vivid believability. Flutur's wildness is extraordinary to see, but Stratan's emotive restraint is nearly as impressive. The pace of the story builds gradually but never uninterestingly, rich with the Romanian setting and character interactions, making scenes of even apparent mundane tasks compelling (a scene of Voichita getting her friend a document reminded me a lot of a scene in Mungiu's, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, where one the main character tries to register a hotel room for her friend to get an abortion in). It's has a gritty realism that doesn't typically shock (though there is at least one big shock) as much as it gets under the viewer's skin.
Beyond the Hills is not an easy film to watch, particularly in the turn it takes towards the end. I won't say much about it other than it concerns very much how the push and pull conflict of the two protagonists comes to ahead in a sequence of ignorant decisions based on superstition (in addition to the lack of interest of people outside the convent). At the end, there's a shot of somebody's face that will not be easily forgotten. This is a film which rewards patience and appreciation of detail, and though at nearly two and a half hours it is not a slog at all if you let it draw you in. It's not quite at the level of 4 Month, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, but, thanks in large part to the two strong leads and the director's building of their story, it comes quite close.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/15/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This is a Romanian film about a girl who reunites with a former lover who has now become a nun. Unfortunately, this girl has some significant trouble accepting her friend's new holy lifestyle and struggles with how to be with the woman she loves without wanting to live the life of a nun for herself. There's a lot of ambiguity in this story that is never explained for the audience. We are left to judge for ourselves if the priest and nuns behave inappropriately, if the young woman has a mental illness of some kind, or even if she is actually possessed. As far as I'm concerned...I don't care. The movie moved back and forth between 2 things I hate watching on film. Half the time it was really slow and extraordinarily boring. Every person spends most of the movie talking in very hushed tones, there is basically no music in the film, it's loaded with dead air. In fact, it took me multiple days to finish this movie because I kept falling asleep while watching. The times when the movie wasn't boring, it was annoying. I constantly wanted to slap some sense into the characters, and was frustrated by their stupid decisions. I can see some of the intriguing elements of Beyond the Hills and why it might fascinate more "cultured" movie-goers. But my big, dumb brain just didn't care.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Between faith and winning a heart back.
This is my second Romanian movie in 3 weeks to review in WCA. And both of them were the Oscars sent movie that never made into the final stage. My Romanian movie count is not exceeded to double digit, but I think now I started to like them and hoping to watch many more in the days to come. This movie was less expected by me, well, I was delaying it for some times, eventually finished it with highly satisfied.
From the director of the Golden Globe Nominee movie '4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days' brings the story of two young women who were once abused when in orphanage that led them to bond closely before going their separate ways after leaving the place. One of them returns from working in Germany to win another's heart back who has now found a place in a convent. How the things work out between them, with their new life and the past attachment that affect not only them but entire convent.
If 'Ida' made into the Oscars, I don't know why this one failed to make. Both of them were kind of similar, about the characters who were caught between the faith and emotion. One's true commitment to the faith is tested with the unexpected encounter with the desires. Is the religion too innocence in the modern world? While the human civilisation shifting its phase to the next stage, the 2000 years old belief is struggling to pull together. In that platform this movie was narrated a wonderful story.
"Continuity is essential in our spiritual realm.
You can't stop for a break when you feel like it."
The tale was quite clearly displayed when one has to choose between two, even knowing what the reality is, but fixed with their devoted mind on one. Maybe like coming from the orphanage, knowing all the struggles about life, this is the way they pledged to help the society. In the perspective of hardcore believers, the movie might be a little hurtful, but nothing serious offensive. It was just a movie, and sometimes it was a dark comedy that was not intended, but anyway I had a few good laughs.
I am really happy for the movie, I won't consider it an outcry about religious cruelty. Unlike hospitals that legally runs performances, while a monastery like this raises a few questions within its practice that performed against someone's will. After all it was inspired by the real even that took place in the 2005 and mostly factual than fiction.
This was set in the present time, but most of the movie shot in a convent just outskirt of a city, so gives the feel of the 60s, 70s or earlier to that. Because their lifestyle that disconnects from the rest of the world, including their financial struggle. An ideal location for the story and its title. Shot in two different seasons similar to change in the phase and pace of the tale to the intensified conclusion. I loved everyone's performance. Definitely it is not in the line of 'Spotlight', but you can't ignore where the movie is pointing out on what went wrong. In my opinion, it is a must see and surely suggest it for all, well, mostly adults for its sensitiveness.
8/10
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
01/30/23
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