The friendship between two young women who grew up in the same orphanage; one has found refuge at a convent in Romania and refuses to leave with her friend, who now lives in Germany.
Mungiu is a director more interested in the process of events than the narrative dimension they possess, and watching Beyond the Hills it is useful to keep in mind Mungiu’s insistence 'that cinema begins when you no longer use images to illustrate a written story.'
A stunning addition to the recent wave of Romanian cinema.
A bruising psychodrama from the Palme d'Or winner that taps into the dark heart of central European superstition.
This thoroughly secular horror movie is a skin-prickler and a marrow-chiller. The story’s unearthly coldness is brilliantly captured by cinematographer Oleg Mutu, who can even make the sun look as if it burns without heat.
This is a slow and in all senses torturous film, less affecting than 4 Months...,though braced with Mungiu's signature moves, the long takes, the compositions of individuals within a crowd, and that still camera, quietly judging.
Mungiu is a brilliant anatomist of bureaucratic exhaustion, and contrives some superb painterly tableaux – which makes the finale even more shocking.
A slowly, quietly riveting passion play for a nation grappling with secularism and modernity.
Beyond The Hills is deeply claustrophobic, and you'll want to take a deep breath when it's over. But you'll have been somewhere you could never have imagined otherwise – not just to an obscure corner of religious Europe, but to murky, painful regions of the human soul.
Extremely long and harrowing, Beyond the Hills has been accused of being deliberately slow. But I found it riveting to watch and fascinating to think about afterwards.
An undeniably tough watch.
What’s fascinating about Mungiu’s approach is his how matter-of-fact it is: he doesn’t amp up the potential genre components or demonise anyone, or offer any answers. His camera is just there, like an indifferent observer, something that makes this film about faith and love a long and challenging watch, but not an unrewarding one.
'Beyond the Hills has no obvious villains': Cristian Mungiu
Cristian Mungiu
Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow. More info: http://www.glasgowfilm.org/theatre/
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Friday March 15, 2013, until Thursday March 28, 2013. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee from Friday March 29, 2013, until Thursday April 4, 2013. More info: www.dca.org.uk