Beyond the hills (movie review)

Beyond the hills (drama) (2012) (2 hrs 32 mins)

This is a powerful and moving Romanian drama written and directed by Cristian Mungiu which shows how vulnerable ordinary people are when they don’t have a family to care for them.

The film follows the friendship of two young woman who grew up together in an orphanage and are now trying to find their place in the adult world. Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) has found a home in a rural Orthodox Christian convent. Her friend, Alina (Cristina Flutur) has left her foster parents and moved to Germany but she feels lost without her friend and comes back to Romania to visit her.

It soon becomes clear that Alina has expectations that Voichita will leave the community and that they can be together. There are suggestions that she sees their relationship as more than just friendship, though it’s not clear whether Voichita feels the same way. In any case, Voichita has changed. She has found security in the routines and rules of her religious order and doesn’t want to lose it.

Alina, feeling rejected, seems about to take her own life by jumping down a well, and is stopped by the sisters. She reacts hysterically and is forcibly restrained. She is taken to the local hospital but they are short of beds and release her back to the convent. As she has nowhere else to go, Voichita persuades the priest to allow her to stay until she decides what she wants to do. She can join the community but only if she makes a declaration of faith and lives by the community’s rules.

As Alina struggles to regain the former intimacy of her friendship and to fit in with the community, her behaviour becomes more and more disruptive. The community want to help her but don’t know how. Voichita is told she can leave the community with her friend or stay on her own but they can’t continue to have Alina stay with them. Desperate to find a way for Alina to stay, she asks the priest to exorcise Alina’s demons, hoping that Alina can find peace as she has done. The priest reluctantly agrees, but with tragic consequences.

The film was based on two novels by Tatian Niculescu Bran about the true story of a young woman who died in a monastery in Moldavia in 2005 after a ritual exorcism. The film won Best Screenplay at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, with Fluture and Stratan sharing the award for Best Actress. It was shortlisted for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

Mungiu manages to convey the real pain of two young women struggling to come to terms with the harsh realities of life. The bleak scenery reinforces the sense of isolation both women feel.  The film is a follow-up to Mungiu’s haunting 2007 film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which told the story of a woman going through an abortion and won the Cannes Palme d’Or for Best Feature Film.

Rating: 8/10