Winner of the second-most prestigious award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, the Grand Prix, Of Gods and Men is a slow-moving yet unnervingly engrossing look at the nature of faith and religion, as nine Trappist monks must stare down the possibility that continuing to serve in their Algerian monastery may cause them to become political casualties during the Algerian Civil War. Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale lead a stellar cast as the monks who spend the majority of the film deliberating over whether or not to abandon their posts in order to ensure their survival. Through a number of tense, loaded dialogues, viewers observe the potential for even the most committed faith to wander in the face of possible death, leading to an unforgettably somber final scene set to Tchaikovsky Swan Lake. Without lingering on the grim detail of the real-life story, director Xavier Beauvois provides an affecting and ever-relevant look at the binding power of religion.
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