Of Gods and Men
This  French film tells the true tale of Trappist monks living near and serving an impoverished Muslim village in the mountains of Algeria during the 90's.   As they go about their labors growing vegetables and tending to the health of the villagers, the  monks strike an idyllic balance between the faiths.  The Trappists are then faced with a stark choice:  they can  abandon the monastery and their mission to serve the poor or face death at the hands of approaching Muslim fundamentalists.


 My sister Sarah, a historian, likes to pronounce that "Fact is stranger than fiction".   In this case, I think fiction could have improved a critical plot point. While there is some disagreement among the monks about staying in harm's way,  I would have preferred a little more argument on the side of survival.   And while I enjoyed the contemplative pacing of most of the film, it's too long.    When the meandering pace winds down there's little drama to pivot on and the air starts coming out of the tires.  The actors are good, but the monks as characters are not particularly vivid.


Apparently the story was headline news in France in '96; perhaps the filmmakers felt they had to be adulatory or stick to certain known facts.  The heart of the story,  a christian attachment to serving the poor, is a theme I would love to see come back into vogue.  One of the monks was also a Koran scholar and the film is certainly clear about the lack of any religious acrimony between the villagers and the monastery.   A disappointing treatment of some good themes.


Coming Soon: Dogtooth - recommended (for a change)

Black Swan
The conceit animating Black Swan is that a young ballerina must harness her duality before she can truly become a star.  She must come to terms with her 'dark' side.   So far, so good.  Enter the Svengali-like ballet master who will push her to new artistic and sexual awareness. She must embody both the virginal White Swan and the seductress Black.  Let's see, male-centered, Madonna/whore formulaic view of women. Check.   Expect gratuitous sex scenes. Check again.   But if sexism alone negated good filmmaking, we'd have an empty library of classics.


What makes this film falter is Aronofsky's lack of conviction.  If a director like Almodovar were given this material,  Natalie Portman's character, Nina, would toss her mother out a window,  have sex with everyone, win the coveted part, dump the ballet master and sail off to paradise with her rival ballerina.  Black Swan could have been a great movie.  Nina becoming the Black Swan on stage is a great scene.


Aronofsky wants to seem subversive, but only inside the formula.  Nina is a straw woman, set up to become hysterical, paranoid and sexual within certain limits. He stuffs the film with horror touches, disorienting shifts in perspective and melodramatic scenes. Nina masturbates (how daring) and it's supposed to be disturbing (unless your a man).  Given the exact same script, I think Almodovar would have made his female stars less cold, sexier and easier to believe.  Without having seen his earlier films it's hard to be sure about Aronofsky, but there is certainly something mechanical and generally misanthropic about this film.