When God becomes a rival in love

The embarrassing situation that left onlookers unable to choose to stand in line, and the dilemma that left the parties helpless, is the expression of the intent of the attention-grabbing Romanian New Wave movies in these six or seven years. Whether it’s the historical retrieving of "Twelve Eighth East of Bucharest" and "Lonely Army", or the real dilemma of "No Medical Reliability" and "The Happiest Girl in the World", Romanian filmmakers have repeatedly compared this The basic skills of contradictory narratives have become more solid, and the anatomy of social reality slices has become more and more thorough. Because the final performance of the moment of despair is so outstanding, this batch of movies, even if the highly documented expressions seem so similar, have always been loved and expected by fans. Cristian Mungiu, who entered the Palme d’Or with “April Three Weeks and Two Days”, is naturally the leader of the new wave of Romania. The “Beyond the Mountains” brought to Cannes this time is still Full of that kind of upsetting anxiety cycle, and even has a role structure similar to "April"-two passive poor girls and a hostile man. However, in terms of geographic space, scene size, time length, and theme, the pattern of "Beyond the Mountains" is much larger than that of Menggi's other works and even all the Roman New Waves of the same generation.

Geographically, as the title of the movie indicates, "Beyond the Mountains" walked out of the city where social contradictions were the most concentrated, and went to the countryside gradually abandoned by modernization, leaving an Orthodox monastery that adheres to the traditional religious beliefs. Fortunately, the rural material The poverty of life and the distress of contemporary hearts make the monastery not lack of believers who need to let God listen to them. The mountains of Trasylvania are either uninhabited or full of snow, with wide exterior sceneries and cramped indoor spaces, and have always been a hotbed of mystery and superstition. The hometown of the legendary vampire Count Dracula, even when it comes to information In modern times, people still believe in some supernatural powers and justice rituals that can exorcise demons.

Reality is always stronger than fiction. This story of Menggi comes from real news. In 2005, a young girl went to a monastery in the mountains of Romania to visit her friends. Three months later, people found her body tied to a cross. The other nuns and priests of this monastery believed that she was possessed by the devil and needed to be saved. She was tied to a cross and kept in a room without food for three days and finally died. Afterwards, the BBC reporter's comprehensive reportage allowed Mengji to enrich the story.

When the news is heard this way, it will only make the priests and nuns of the monastery appear to be ignorant and evil forces. However, Mengji and the Romanian New Wave will never allow good and evil to stand side by side, not to mention the truth of the incident. So simple. The victim in the film is Alina, a 25-year-old girl who usually works in Germany to make a living. She returned to this monastery in Romania to find Vickya, who also grew up as an orphan. The two girls were once friends with each other and loved each other deeply. Compared with Vickya, who already had a strong love of God, the frustrated Alina became more possessive and wanted to take her girlfriend away. Now we must face a powerful rival in love-God, and his incarnation in the world-the priest.

Alina herself has also been given crazy behaviors with real mental problems by the director. In her view that is constantly out of control, the monastery is the base of the devil, and the priest is the real Satan who possesses his girlfriend; in the eyes of the nuns and priests, Ah Lina has been completely possessed by the devil, a lonely and poor child. The hospital can't manage this patient, and her childhood adoptive parents no longer have a place for her. Every individual and every community appeared so innocent in this tragedy. A society without any malice, a religion full of love, has become the invisible murderer who kills girls. The grand theme of "Beyond the Mountains" spews with Alina's heartbreaking cry on the cross Come.

Mengji has been thinking about “how much energy the believers have to put in to practice the complicated religious etiquette, how much time can they have to truly appreciate the essence and wisdom of religion?” When facing the police investigation, he knew that the exorcism ceremony was The illegal priest tried his best to defend: "We just tied her to a wooden stand and read the Bible just to help her and alleviate her suffering." The police replied, "You call this a wooden stand? In my opinion it is. Cross." Another policeman ran back to the car and announced: "The prosecutor is not there, so I went to work on another case. A young man stabbed his mother to death and posted the photo on the Internet."

The sense of powerlessness for redemption ended in despair. Desolation struck again.

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