Whom the Gods Would Destroy

Despite suggesting tensions between the community and the national security forces, Xavier Beauvois makes little attempt to solve the mystery in Of Gods and Men. Instead, he concentrates on the psychological and spiritual impact that the knowledge of impending death has on men who had sacrificed their lives to the service of others, but had never previously considered the prospect of dying for their faith. The result is a film of great intensity, integrity and intelligence, as it contemplates the legacy of colonialism on the Maghreb, as well as the centuries-old struggle between adherents of the Bible and the Koran. But it is also a quietly inspirational treatise on the difference between religious conviction and living according to one's beliefs.

Nestling in the verdant countryside of an unnamed North African state, the monastery headed by the scholarly Lambert Wilson has close ties to the adjoining village. Medic Michel Lonsdale tends to the locals with an easy avuncularity, while Olivier Rabourdin, Philippe Laudenbach, Loïc Pichon, Xavier Maly and the aged Jacques Herlin sell produce at the nearby market. When not attending to their chores, the brothers gather in the simple chapel for sung services of humble beauty that emphasise the strength of their bond and the piety of their non-proselytising mission.

However, on Christmas Eve, jihadi commander Farid Larbi comes to the monastery and demands that Lonsdale travels to his camp to treat a wounded rebel. Wilson resists and is surprised when Larbi offers a handshake out of respect for his decisive leadership and knowledge of Islamic scripture. But everyone realises that the incident has exposed their vulnerability at a time of growing fanaticism and Wilson offers his companions the opportunity to return to France. Lonsdale and Herlin have no intention of leaving, but the others have to wrestle with their consciences, with Rabourdin being particularly torn between duty and martyrdom.

The situation deteriorates after some Croatian labourers are slaughtered and Larbi is assassinated by the local militia. Wilson and Pichon visit the regional governor, only to be greeted with a volley of anti-imperialist rhetoric and a callous indifference to their fate. So, once again, Wilson offers the monks the chance to leave. But they vote to remain and celebrate what turns out to be a last supper with the visiting Olivier Perrier.

Accompanied by the strains of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, this sequence is superbly photographed in fluid close-ups that capture the mixed emotions of ordinary men discovering unsuspected reserves of courage, acceptance and faith. Yet Beauvois retains the mood of restraint that makes this exploration of theology, politics and humanity so authentic and poignant. Caroline Champetier's use of light and Michel Barthélémy's austere interiors are crucial in this regard. But it's the discipline of the performances that gives the drama its potency, with Wilson particularly excelling as the abbot whose somewhat aloof manner doesn't always endear him to either friend or foe.

Beauvois and co-scenarist Étienne Comar might have presented more of each man's backstory (especially as several of the actual victims had led remarkable lives) in delving more deeply into the reasons why the monks are so determined to stay. They could also have examined the reaction of both their flock and the wider church to their plight. But this is still a compelling study of doubt and fear and the consequences of putting one's entire trust in the rectitude of a religious calling.

Marc Dugain puts a totalitarian slant on similar themes in An Ordinary Execution, which he has adapted from the first part of his own bestselling novel about recent Russian history. Loweringly photographed by Yves Angelo in sombre browns and blacks, this is a chilling supposition set in the last days of Joseph Stalin's tyrannical regime that has a terrible ring of authenticity. Yet, for all its austerity, credible conspiracy theories and sense of shrouding suspicion, this is just a touch self-satisfied in its academicism and its allusions to both Raputin and Vladimir Putin.

Doctor Marina Hands has incurred the wrath of her colleagues at a Moscow hospital for her ability to heal patients by unconventional means. Indeed, only the protection of director Tom Novembre has prevented lustful rival Alain Stern's report on her activities from being sent to the authorities. Even at home, she is under the constant watch of concierge Denis Podalydès, who informs her that her noisy attempts to get pregnant with civil servant husband Edouard Baer have been upsetting the neighbours. However, such everyday prejudice and snooping come to seem petty after Hands is summoned to the Kremlin to ease the suffering of the dictator (André Dussollier), who has recently purged his personal physician for participating in a Zionist plot.

Initially sure she was being taken to the Lubyanka - the headquarters of the NKVD controlled by the sinister Lavrenty Beria (Gilles Gaston-Dreyfus) - Hands is somewhat surprised to be ushered into Dussollier's inner sanctum, where he menacingly reassures her that she has nothing to fear providing she relieves his aches and pains and tells nobody about her mission. Indeed, to that end, he suggests that she divorces Baer, because she cannot possibly be loyal to him while married to another. Speaking in measured tones that fleetingly reveal the man of steel beneath the world-weary affability, Dussollier is pleased with the mystical magnetism of Hands's ministrations and he promises to call her again soon.

Deeply disturbed by both Dussollier's paranoia and the peril in which she now finds herself, Hands returns to her humble apartment and informs Baer that she has taken a lover and wants a divorce. He is crushed, but seems to sense that she is trying to protect him. However, both Baer and her mother (Anne Benoît) and uncle (Gilles Ségal) soon wind up in custody to ensure Hands's continued co-operation, as she treats Dussollier in both the Kremlin and his Georgian dacha. During their meetings, he reminisces about his handling of Hitler, Roosevelt and Truman and justifies the brutal methods he employed to drag his peasant nation into the modern era.

Hands largely remains silent for fear of provoking a rage that will condemn her family. Then, one night in March 1953, she notices a paper on Dussollier's desk denouncing her as a foreign agent. But, it turns out not to be her death warrant.

Making exceptional use of Yves Fournier's forbidding interiors, Dugain and Angelo create a claustrophobic, mausoleum-like atmosphere that increases the tension of Hands's excruciating consultations with the intimidating Dussollier. The performances couldn't be better, with Hands ever watchful for a shift in her patient's mood and Dussollier tempering his vulnerable avuncularity with controlled flashes of cynical cruelty. The sequence in which he torments Hands with details of Baer's torture is particularly disturbing. But the silences Hands endures as Dussollier sleeps on a sofa after each treatment are equally effective in conveying both her dread and the aura of uncertainty that pervades the entire picture.

The medical aspects are much more graphically depicted in Reinout Oerlemans's Love Life. Adapted from Raymond van der Klundert's autobiographical novel, A Woman Goes to the Doctor, this was a huge hit in its native Netherlands. However, there is too little in this tale of infidelity in a time of cancer to distinguish it from the quotidian love-rat melodrama or `disease of the week' movie.

Narrated by Barry Atsma in a tone that veers between swaggering self-congratulation and shrugging justification, the action opens with a whirlwind romance between the dashing thirtysomething Amsterdam advertising executive (who seems to have once played for Ajax) and feisty colleague Carice van Houten, which culminates in a picture-book wedding, the birth of a cute daughter and a move to a soullessly luxurious house in the suburbs. Atsma seems to have the world at his feet. But he is only really content when cheating on his wife and his addiction to adultery intensifies when Van Houten is diagnosed with breast cancer and Atsma exploits artist Anna Drijver to provide a release from the tiresome routine of accompanying Van Houten to hospital appointments and nursing her through the ghastly side effects of her treatment.

Eventually, Van Houten catches Atsma in the lies he has been perpetuating with the respectively reluctant and active assistance of workmates Jeroen Willems and Walid Benmbarek. But she accepts his assurance that he is devoted solely to her recovery and, when she goes into remission, he jets her off for a tropical holiday. No sooner have they arrived, however, than Atsma receives a call from Drijver and Van Houten demands a divorce. Even then, she is unable to break free and their reconciliation is reinforced by the return of her illness. But, even though Van Houten only has a few months to live, Atsma still proves incapable of remaining faithful.

Refusing to venture beneath the surface of Atsma and Van Houten's superficial world, this is a glossy and rather glib drama that devotes too little time to its female protagonists. Drijver is simply a source of irresistible temptation, while young Yfke Wegman is wheeled on periodically to say something adorably meaningful that causes mummy and daddy to look at each other with tearfully brave smiles. Even Van Houten is required to do little other than suffer nobly and occasionally chastise Atsma for the philandering she eventually comes to tolerate to the extent that she urges him to be happy with Drijver after her death.

Atsma's amoral louse is no more fully fleshed, however. Oerlemans and screenwriter Gert Embrechts stop short of condoning his actions and even lace the voice-over with ironic remarks that betray his self-centred shallowness. But Oerlemans certainly suggests that Atsma's extra-curricular activities are highly enjoyable in flashily directed scenes set in trendy nightclubs and well-appointed studio apartments. His use of music is no more subtle, with just about every track shamelessly manipulating the audience's emotions. Clearly the audiovisual style is supposed to reflect Atsma's personality, but even Van Houten's ordeal feels designed more to provoke a viewer reaction than provide a realistic insight into the ravages of a pitiless disease.

The performances are solid, with Atsma letting his looks and charm do much of the work, while Van Houten conveys the distress of hair loss, endless vomiting and the devastation of discovering she has not been cured with a stoic sadness that is tempered with occasional flashes of fury at the unfairness of her situation and the cruelty of her husband's behaviour. But while this may have broken Dutch box-office records, it will seem more like a psychologically vacuous soap opera to those unfamiliar with Van der Klundert (who uses the nom de plume, Kluun) and the critically mauled bestsellers that have made him a controversial celebrity.

It's not easy to gauge the target audience for the week's third medical drama, either, as Bruce Webb's The Be All and the End All seems better suited to a young person's film festival than the local multiplex. Nevertheless, this is exactly the kind of non-patronising teenpic that continental film-makers have been producing for some two decades and it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Antonio Mercero's 4th Floor (2003) and Delphine Kreuter's 57000 Km Between Us (2007).

While holidaying with his parents Connor McIntyre and Catherine Rice and best mate Eugene Byrne, 15 year-old Josh Bolt develops a crush on campsite barmaid Bryony Seth. However, a vodka binge causes him to collapse and he is kept in hospital while McIntyre drives Byrne back to Liverpool and his Scottish librarian mother, Neve McIntosh. Eventually, Bolt is transferred to a children's ward in the city, but he is frustrated by everyone's reluctance to discuss his condition and he persuades Byrne to steal his notes from nurse Lisa Tarbuck's desk. Unfortunately, the prognosis is not good and the bedridden Bolt pleads with Byrne to ensure he doesn't die a virgin.

Having failed to talk his female classmates into performing an act of mercy, Byrne agrees to put his birthday money towards purchasing Bolt a session at a dockside massage parlour. However, the premises are raided by the police and Byrne has to wheel his half-naked buddy back to the hospital in a supermarket trolley. Further misadventures occur in the red light district, when Byrne not only loses his cash to a shifty pimp, but also spots McIntyre seeking some seedy solace from the strain of his situation. But an encounter with prostitute Leanne Best and some delicate negotiations with the sympathetic Tarbuck lead to an assignation that is interrupted in the most charming manner.

Scripted by Steve Lewis and Tony Owen with a judicious mix of Scouse wit, vernacular veracity and adolescent gravitas, this is one of the best low-budget British films of 2010. Zillah Bowes's 16mm photography has a suitably grainy feel that is reinforced by a Richard Lannoy score that catches the mood without dictating the tone. The debuting Webb similarly directs with a no-nonsense grittiness that's flecked with a little laddish sentimentality.

But it's the performance of Eugene Byrne that most impresses, whether he's searching for the girl of Bolt's dreams, removing the porn from his pal's computer, cadging cash off McIntosh or getting ticked off by the excellent Tarbuck. Indeed, he even manages to invest a rather hoary subplot involving a runaway father with more sincerity than Kyle Ward summoned in A Boy Called Dad. However, the bracing views of the Wirral coastline ensure that even this cornball conclusion feels right.

Aspiring author Brian Geraghty also has sex on the brain in Kyle Patrick Alvarez's Easier With Practice, a fact-based saga that draws on Davy Rothbart's GQ article, `What Are You Wearing?' Requiring a sizeable suspension of disbelief to buy into Geraghty's telephone relationship with a mysterious stranger named Nicole, this intriguing feature debut, nevertheless, offers a sensitive and often astute insight into emotional immaturity, social gaucheness and the risks that an increasing number of people are willing to take in an age of supposedly anonymous communication to make contact with someone who just might understand them.

Rapidly approaching 30 and having just self-published a slim volume of short stories, Geraghty embarks on a tour of New Mexico in the company of his carpingly hedonistic younger brother, Kel O'Neill. The readings go well, as the awkward Geraghty is able to hide behind his prose. But he can't wait to retreat to the latest characterless motel room and he almost surprises himself when he answers the phone one evening to find himself chatting to the bewitching Nicole. Initially embarrassed by the masturbatory nature of their encounter, Geraghty comes to value what become their nightly conversations. Yet, while Nicole is more than forthcoming during their lovemaking, she refuses to give Geraghty her number or to accede to his repeated requests to meet.

The affair dies down after O'Neill begins mocking Geraghty's constant need for solitude and ex-girlfriend Marguerite Moreau lets him know that she wouldn't be averse to a reunion. However, Nicole tracks him down and finally agrees to a rendezvous that proves more of a surprise for Geraghty than it will the majority of the audience.

Responding admirably to the challenge of exposing his character's lusts and insecurities in a series of unflinchingly intrusive long takes, Brian Geraghty delivers a performance that's as courageous as it's accomplished. His commitment to a sordid fantasy that could easily be the preamble to a dangerous liaison is both pathetic and creepy. Yet he also comes across as lonely and vulnerable, right up until the moment that Nicole's true identity is revealed.

Moreover, Geraghty also holds the picture together, as he is on screen for much of the time and his painful psychological journey is much more interesting than the rather predictable road movie vistas and backwater interiors that Alvarez uses to give Geraghty's dilemma some state-of-the-nation significance. Yet Alvarez does manage some shrewd observations on the crisis in American masculinity and there is genuine compassion in his non-judgemental revelation of the delusional misfit's shame and humiliation on finally making human contact with someone who is no more equipped to deal with life's harsh realities than he is.

Finally, there's a shocking change of tone in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Following the success of his online shorts Rare Exports, Inc. and The Official Rare Exports Inc Safety Instructions, Finnish director Jalmari Helander makes an accomplished feature debut with this rattling Yuletide yarn. Ditching the Coca-Cola vision of Santa Claus to return to the more sinister Scandinavian legends of yore, this will delight younger audiences reared on Roald Dahl and JK Rowling and should also keep their parents amused, too.

Tweenager Onni Tommila lives with his reindeer hunting father Jorma Tommila near Lapland's Arctic border with Russia. Times are tough and a bleak Christmas seems guaranteed when a wolf is blamed for the brutal depletion of the herd. However, Onni and best buddy Ilmari Jarvenpaa know that the real reason for the slaughter lies in the nearby mountain, where they witnessed a mysterious excavation taking place under the tightest security.

Jorma sets a trap to catch the predator, but is amazed to find he has only captured a snarling old man (Peeter Jakobi), who is so feisty that he has to be locked in the slaughterhouse and approached with extreme caution. However, having read up on the traditional Santa - who delighted in punishing the naughty rather than rewarding the nice - Onni suspects he knows the identity of the captive. But he is distracted by the discovery that every child in the village has disappeared, along with all manner of heating appliances.

Building to a rousing climax, Helander shifts the action from the wilds to a downtown warehouse where Santa's grizzled helpers are attempting to thaw him from a huge block of ice found deep in the mountain and Onni has to devise an audacious helicopter stunt to lure them away from their master and ensure his permanent demise.

Concluding with the gag that launched the cult shorts, this is a darkly comic fantasy with a Gremlins-like mix of magic and malevolence. Mika Orasmaa's imagery and Torunn Anfinsen and Liv Ask's production design give the action a blockbuster feel, but this is also a thoughtful (if not always reverential) insight into life in a declining macho milieu. Helander imbues proceedings with a Joe Dantesque sense of mischievous wonderment and it would surprise no one if his next movie was made in Hollywood.