Steven, you said in your initial review that “Whoever you are, whatever you bring to it, it will not tell you exactly what you want to hear, unless that is all you are willing or able to hear.”  Everything you’ve mentioned in these two follow-up posts have not been difficult for me.  So, I’ll mention what was hard for me, challenging to me:

WARNING! SPOILERS!

I was most challenged by the fact that Br. Amedee slid under his bed when the insurgents burst into the monastery.  Not even so much by the fact that one of the monks did, but that it was Br. Amedee, who the film showed as so serene and recollected.  The young monk, Br. Christophe, so tormented by doubts, would not have surprised.

But then I thought about it, and I realized that the point of being willing to die is not about handing yourself over to the murderers at the door.  The monks weren’t called to suicide.  They were called not to resist death should that be to what God called them through the instrumentality of the terrorists.  For Br. Amedee to hide under the bed ultimately was no more lacking in courage or readiness to face martyrdom than it was for Elizabethan Jesuits to huddle in priest holes. 

It was difficult to see happen on-screen, but a necessary corrective to false notions of martyrdom.

“Of Gods and Men” may well be my all-time favorite religious film.

Steven,

I am very much enjoying these articles.  I look forward to more - especially if you are going to discuss Christian’s final monologue.  I very much hope you do.  It’s really the one element of the film that seems to me to tie all of the strands of religious thought together into an indifferentist bundle.  Until that point, I had essentially the same opinion that you’ve expressed in these two posts: the film has some elements that can be interpreted negatively, but are just as easily interpreted positively - and as you’ve argued very well here, perhaps most authentically interpreted positively.

Christian’s final words, however, seem to me to act very much as a lens through which all of these various elements are interpreted - especially for a secular audience.  Large portions of his speech seem to me to be at least *potentially* interpreted well, but at least one segment seems to me irredeemable - at least as quoted in the film, as I don’t know what the full text says.  That part is his statement is that in which he says something to the effect that Islam was the soul to Afganistan’s body - as though apart from Islam, the place would be either dead or otherwise in a worse state.

I don’t know how to link a PDF file, but if you do a Google search for the following terms (no internal quotes)

Brother christian text letter monk Algeria Islam

The fourth hit you’ll get (as I write) is a link to davidson.edu that links to a 13-page paper that very early on has the entire text of Brother Christian’s letter.

Here is a link that I can’t guarantee will work to that paper (it’ll start downloading a PDF if it works)

Anyhoo, here is the actual text of that part Brother Christian’s letter (page 3 of the paper), which is read unchanged to my memory (except by omission, but some important ones) in the film:

I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism encourages.
It is too easy to salve one’s conscience
By identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideologies of the extremists.
For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: they are a body and a soul.
I have proclaimed this often enough, I believe, in the sure knowledge of what I have received from it,
finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel,
learnt at my mother’s knee, my very first Church,
already in Algeria itself, in the respect of believing Muslims.
My death, clearly, will appear to justify
those who hastily judged me naïve, or idealistic:
“Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!”
But these people must realize that my avid curiosity will then be satisfied.
This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills—
immerse my gaze in that of the Father,
and contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them,
all shining with the glory of Christ,
the fruit of His Passion, and filled with the Gift of the Spirit,
whose secret joy will always be to establish communion
and to refashion the likeness, playfully delighting in the differences.

Well, I tried the link and it doesn’t work.

@ Victor:
 
The trick isn’t linking to a PDF (although Victor’s link was messed up). It’s linking to a PDF that a) has a filename with spaces b) in a way that won’t break in the Register’s content management system. (You can’t use percent sign followed by 20; the Reg CMS renders this as a space and then breaks the link.) Solution: Tinyurl.com. I fixed the link in your post (here it is again).
 
@ Shane:
 
Christian’s final testament is indeed the topic of my third post, and Victor’s comments significantly anticipate mine, so I won’t comment further here.

Here is a link to the PDF Victor mentioned in a “Google Preview” which allows anyone to view even if they haven’t got a PDF viewer.

Well nuts my link is dead too.

David S, see my comments above. I fixed your link too. :-)

SDG, my only comment on this post is on this section:

...terrorists may indeed know the Quran and may even be able to finish a quotation.

In that scene, isn’t the quote Christian pulls from the Koran sufficient to convince the terrorist leader to renounce terrorism against the monks? In other words, aren’t the two references to the Koran in Of Gods and Men of a piece with each other? The movie doesn’t seem to give any time to the notion the violence or murder are permitted by the Koran.

@ Michelle: Interesting, thanks for your thoughts. I’m glad that Amedee challenged you the way he did, and that you thought through to the correct conclusion.

SPOILERS:
Incidentally, Amadee’s survival is foreshadowed a couple of times in the film. Examining the frail elderly monk, Luc says, “You’ll outlive us all.” Luc (IIRC) also foreshadows the mode of Amedee’s survival when, discussing the problem of insurgent attacks at the monastery, says facetiously, “We could play hide and seek.”

Direct evangelization among Muslims? The reader who suggested it has no idea about that world. I lived among Muslims, and although it was completely secular state, I can say that direct evangelization is totally counterproductive.
Also, criticizing monks because they rejected the military’s offer to guard monastery only shows that correspodent never heard of regime in Algeria.
Steven, it’s necessary but - from my point of view - really sad that you have to write articles about how catholic is this film. Only in USA, I suppose, people can so easily and self-confidently apply American habits&rules; on culture and every situation.

@ David S: Christian may have turned away the terrorist leader and even made an ambiguous friend of the monks from him, but he certainly didn’t persuade him to give up terrorism itself. And while Christian’s citation from the Quran was certainly significant in that scene, I’m not sure it was the crucial turning point. Already the terrorist leader was somewhat at a loss how to respond to Christian’s adamant refusals of all of his demands; it’s not clear to me that the terrorist leader was prepared for actual deadly force against the monks in the first place.
 
@ Magnificat: I don’t think people are asking questions because they’re American, much less because they’re self-confidently applying American cultural habits. I think they’re asking questions because the film is a challenging film. Christian’s own message suggests that his views and choices were controversial in his native France too, not just in the USA—but for different reasons. I expect the film was also challenging to French audiences, but perhaps in different ways.

My brother Christian. Why do you exaggerate the claims of your religion? Let me quote you
a section of the Fourth Lateran Council - 1215 A.D:

‘...since each of the three persons is that reality—that is to say substance, essence or divine nature-which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature.’

Can we say that the Catholic Church emphatically denies that-that reality-is a Father?
When Islam says a truth, it’s the emphatic denial, when the Council says it, it’s the Truth!
Look not wt what being said, look at who said it!

The image of the Quran on Brother Christian’s desk didn’t phase me at all. Perhaps that’s because of my own life’s experiences abroad. I didn’t once think that he was entertaining the muslim beliefs, but rather trying to understand the local culture.
When I was in high school, my parents uprooted the family and moved to Micronesia for a few years, where they had been assigned as teachers after joining the Lay Mission Helpers group in the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
The first thing one has to understand about “missionary” work (and I use that in quotes because so many people don’t understand the difference between mission and evangelizing) is that you know nothing about the culture you are sent to (mito, mittere, misi, the latin “to send”).
The uninformed image of missionary work is that you “go there to teach those heathens a thing or two.” A distinction must be made, I think, between evangelization and mission.
The whole point of mission is to serve the community, to understand the culture. I think every member of my family, as well as probably most who have had a mission experience, have learned more than they have taught.
That’s why I didn’t interpret the monks’ actions as indicative of indifferentism, because it must be taken in the larger context of their mission in that village.
The worst thing they could have done (as some examples of history would clearly illustrate) would be to set up camp and go out and try to “save” everybody.
Instead, the monks work in both studying the Quran and interacting, accepting, and ultimately, understanding the local way of life, indicates a long term acclimation to the culture.
Only after they are integrated into the society and understand the centuries old way of life in the village, could they even begin to approach the teaching of Christianity in a way that could be understood and accepted by the community.
So were they evangelizing? No. And I’d have to say it was probably a good thing. They were living by example, and the people of the village definitely saw that, and understood their wisdom, seeking their advice, and most likely wondering what it was that was different about these men’s beliefs than their own.
I guess given that perspective I wasn’t hung up on what they were doing or not doing, and I really enjoyed the film. I loved the chanting and how there was no non-diegetic score. I loved the filmic metaphors drawing comparisons to different parts of the life of Christ, scripture, and art.
The wine scene was a little self indulgent, and I don’t think Swan Lake was the best choice of music, but overall, an inspiring film that reminded me of an era of movies long since past. Amazing to think that a film like that could get through these days, let alone be a French film!

“I loved the chanting and how there was no non-diegetic score.”

NondiaWHAT?!?! Whatchootokkinabout, Willis?

A quick and dirty explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-diegetic_insert

Basically, in film theory, diegetic elements are those which exsist in the story world. Non-diegetic elements arthose which exist to the audience but not to the characters in the film. This can include music, sounds, subtitles, and other elements.

When Darth Vader stomps down the corridors of the Death Star, he does not hear the grand and ominous march that we the audience hear. Of course breaking the 4th wall in terms of diegesis is a method used in some comedies, Mel Brooks being a prime example.

In “Of Gods and Men” the only music we hear during the movie is source music, or music which originates from people or objects in the world of the characters. The monks chant, and they play a recording of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. One of the ways we are immersed into the world of these men is that it is not given the cinematic frame of a score which, although can provide emotional impact, also separates us from the world of the characters. It’s a rare film that doesn’t benefit from a good orchestral score, but this is definitely one of them. Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” is another prime example.

Tof:

I was just pulling your leg. I know what diegetic/nondiegetic means, though I will say it was weird to hear someone who (AFAIK ... correction accepted) is not a pro critic use such a technical term.

That’s Ed ... and so I say something substantive re OF GODS AND MEN ... one thing I noticed on a recent view is how the sound changes during the “Swan Lake” piece in ways related to that distinction.

Yes, “Swan Lake” begins as a tape that Brother Luc puts into a cassette player (i.e., as diegetic music). But, as the scene continues, the music’s sound quality changes from that typical of diegetic music (i.e., tied to and/or acknowledging the characters reactions, the sounds reflecting the scene’s space) to that associated with nondiegetic (i.e., as a separate sound track and MUCH louder). And you’re right ... there was no nondiegetic music until then.

What’s fascinating is that parallel changes are occurring elsewhere in the scene. Natural sounds (clinking of glasses, sounds of body movements, etc.) gradually recede until there is no other soundtrack besides “Swan Lake.” And the images become more heavily edited and less tied to a coherent scene space, getting closer and closer to the monks until at the end it’s all very tight facial and even eye closeups. It’s as if the filmmaker is getting closer to the monks’ souls, leaving behind natural representation and approaching transcendence. And the monks, in their Last Supper like scene, are embracing a parallel change—NOW they have truly died to self, can truly live as martyrs, etc.

Agreed Victor, those are some good points, and well dissected. I just felt that scene was a little heavy handed. I think the director’s point was made about halfway through the scene.

I will suggest to learn quran yourself and you will find the truth. Quran guide us towards nature and show us the path where we all are one. Quran teach us how to convert our individual thinking into collective thinking so that peace prevail in our society. http://www.learnquranonline.net