Beyond the Hills - The Evil One

 Written and Directed by Cristian Mungiu.

In this remote convent beyond the hills, the nuns become more and more suffocating and the clear portrait of watching someone sane looking like the mentally disturbed one and the ones who are completely delusional in these ideas of saints and evils look like the rational ones. My logic is that it’s the complete opposite but this story and the director of this film master the change of roles and I saw myself suffocating with the idea completely.

This girl who visits her close friend is suddenly trapped in this delusional world. To me it is delusional, absolutely delusional. I don't think someone would treat this girl the way those nuns, the priest and her friend did. Imagine if people would send others to the hospital and trap them in chains every time someone would yell or insult or freak out about something or someone? There would be tons of people in the hospital all the time.

The center of this is film is religion. Religion to me is confusing. First and foremost I have to try and see it through simple basis, as being faith. And then what religion does is conceive institutions, a set of rules, or 'Dogmas', as you can see in one scene from this film. Then there's the perversion of the use of religion. Like everything in society and the world, anything can be distorted and perverted to unthinkable proportions. But religion has its communities, you know, like the Vatican, and at some perverted extent, they're immune. You know when a kid grows up and believes in the constitution of Christianity, he then starts questioning his religion, this institution he's in, and the answer he gets to his questions  is 'The word of God is bigger than questions', in other words, it says, don't question. When at the same time he has the answer to everything. Then there's the perverted notion, when a mentally disturbed person, you know, pedophiles, I mean priests, use 'God', something abstract, to excuse their ways. I also can’t accept and understand when someone survives a brain tumor or something else quite extraordinarily brave and say that God made him survive. When it was all his strength, all the fight, it all came from him. He did it. Why does God earns that title instead? Because he represents faith? Because he was the one who suffered, not God. So like I said at the beginning, these people are delusional. And sometimes, delusional acts can be fatal, quite deadly and that’s what happens behind the hills.

One of the most challenging films of the year, on my side.

Along with À Perdre la raison.