In Beyond The Hills a half dozen nutty nuns tie a stranger to a cross to exorcise Satan from her. Set in the snow-blasted desolation of rural Romania, Cristian Mungiu’s second film concerns itself with why and how Alina (Cristina Flutur) got herself in this predicament for the sake of Vaichita (Cosmina Stratan), whom she’s known since first grade at the orphanage and was once her lover; she might have joined this religious order to exorcise her own sexual demons. The monastery, which looks like a medieval chicken coop, buckles under the leadership of an Orthodox priest known only as Papa (Valeriu Andriuta), blessed with a beard Rasputin would admire and a mien out of Tolstoy. He’s a jolly sort, given to dinner table speeches condemning Western decadence such as “woman marrying woman,” which should have alerted Vaichita that this wasn’t the Marriott Bucharest.
Beyond The Hills offers no mystery. It’s a movie set up to punish its characters (and at 150 minutes the audience). After Alina has a violent fit, a hospital stay and questions from a doctor — not to mention the prescribed pills — leave no doubt that she suffers from a form of schizophrenia. Why this woman in her early twenties isn’t released on her own recognizance or to the care of her brother isn’t satisfactorily answered; it’s possible Romanian hospital officials are more credulous. When Vaichita still won’t go to Germany with Alina, provoking another frenzy, the torture begins. She’s denied food. She’s gagged and bound with towels and chains The nuns, murmuring prayers and pity, wipe urine and shit from her cross. Papa recites Saint Basil’s prayers. Because Mungiu’s strength — as he proved in the far better 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — is bluntness and not ambiguity, we can nothing but squirm. And to what end? In Carl Dreyer’s great Day of Wrath, the Gothic harshness of the lighting seemed to harden the very oxygen around the characters; the violence kept building, was of a piece. The two Mungiu pictures are didactic: I can imagine him in interviews saying he intended them as statements on the barbarism that distinguishes post-Iron Curtain Romania. They swat you across the head with their messages.
The performances are of a piece. Stratan and Fluture, who shared the Best Actress prize at Cannes, are instructed to play modes: Fluture a whey-faced mooncalf repeating pious nonsense; Stratan a sullen resentment, although when she’s allowed to move she’s got the grace and power of a volleyball player (no wonder the nuns have trouble binding her). Except for a terse rubdown sequence (see the image above), not a hint of sensuality flickers between the pair. Alina’s suspicion that Papa may be sexually involved with his charges hangs in the frigid air. Beyond The Hills is at its best when it abandons the two women to note the nuns’ daily chores. Oleg Mutu’s patient handheld camera follows them as they dump live fish in a sink, cook borscht, say their prayers, draw water from wells. The beautiful, strange 2010 movie Of Gods and Men wrought similar admiration for the monochromatic devotion of its Trappists to routine. Creating the strongest impression is Mother (Dana Tapalaga), Papa’s second in command, who through outmoded round spectacles responds to cries of torment and barking dogs with a remarkably modulated bovine acceptance; rarely has faith looked as sinister.
When we get a chance to savor the contrasts between the curt efficiency of bureaucrats and the lulling rhythms of life on the monastery, Beyond The Hills starts to expand. The last scene doesn’t need lumpen expository dialogue on The State of The World designed to create a facile reminder of what Papa himself pontificated on the same subject, but a few minutes of brisk interrogation by a no-nonsense nurse are devastating. In any other film — in Mungiu’s own 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days — she’d be a villain; watching her accuse the nuns provides Beyond The Hills‘ one audience-pleasing moment. By the end of this movie though I felt as if I were tied on that cross.
Humanizing The Vacuum 