The Cannes Film Festival closed over the weekend, and much of the buzz out of France has been over the Grand Prix winner, Des Hommes et Des Dieux (Of Gods and Men). It recounts the story of a group of French Trappists who were caught in the middle of the Algerian civil war and ultimately beheaded in 1996:
Conflict arises between the Government and the fundamentalist groups. Immigrants have their throats cut, female teachers are killed and the monks [who have been ministering to local villagers] are advised to leave by both sides. They refuse and, led by Brother Christian, played by Lambert Wilson, they even discuss the Koran with the Mujahidin who raid the monastery for medical supplies. . . .
The film becomes tense and gripping as each monk decides whether to stay — and almost inevitably become a martyr — or to go. When the monks say to the villagers that they are “birds on a branch, not sure whether to fly”, the villagers answer that the monks are the branch itself, their protection from the chaos beyond.
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. . . one of the most gut-wrenching scenes shows the monks before the altar continuing to sing above the sound of a helicopter gunship swooping again and again, menacing the monastery on its peaceful mountain. As someone says, staying there is [as] mad as becoming a monk in the first place.
The Church has sadly known many martyrs in Africa over the past century, but it’s the slow and deliberate nature of this particular story — the growing realization that staying in Algeria meant certain death, the struggle over the choice to stay or flee, and the final decision to remain — that intrigues me. The short clip below manages to pack all of that conflict into a few glances and even fewer words; even knowing how the story ends, I still caught myself holding my breath:
As Martin Barillas sums up in his Spero review, “The witness of the Trappists of Our Lady of Atlas takes its place alongside . . . not a few other sons and daughters on the African continent who, during this period, have given their lives for the Lord and for their brothers and sisters, beginning with those who persecuted and killed them. Their witness is the victory of the Cross, the victory of the merciful love of God, who saves the world.”
Someone please pick this up for distribution in the States.
[h/t Austin Ivereigh]