SYNOPSICS
Dupa dealuri (2012) is a Romanian movie. Cristian Mungiu has directed this movie. Cosmina Stratan,Cristina Flutur,Valeriu Andriuta,Dana Tapalaga are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2012. Dupa dealuri (2012) is considered one of the best Drama movie in India and around the world.
Alina and Voichita have been friends since their orphanage days. And they have been lovers since they became sexually mature. But despite their oath of mutual fidelity, Alina, who could not bear poverty any more, emigrated to Germany where she became a barmaid. Now she just could not take the estrangement from Voichita and today she is back to Romania with a view to taking Voichita along with her to Germany. The only trouble is that in the meantime her girlfriend has betrayed her in falling in love with... God! Voichita indeed now lives in a convent where she plans to make vows. The priest agrees, if somewhat reluctantly, to accommodate Alina before their (hypothetical) departure. He sees all too well that not only is the young woman materialistic but hostile and troublesome as well...
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Dupa dealuri (2012) Reviews
Love in times of prayer
A grim and intense story about love, faith, the presence of God and the absence of God, slowly penetrates the viewer's mind, so slowly that it takes Director and Screenplayer Cristian Mungiu more than two hours to make a convincing case for redemption. No doubt that he has a skilled team, to include Oleg Mutu (cinematography). This is not a horror movie; what is horrifying is the knowledge that it is based on a real story of a 2005 Christian Orthodox exorcism gone wrong, somewhere beyond the hills of Moldavia (a region in Eastern Romania). The scariest aspect is that it can happen to you, no need for a monastery or any kind of mental illness. All it takes is to express disdain against a highly controlled environment, the kind of environment that requires continuously patching the stove such that no smoke comes out to spoil the harmony of a strict yet loving family. The movie builds upon the viewer's expectancy that what can go wrong it will, and, with a remarkable lack of explicit violence, creates a gripping parallel reality where all imaginary roads are paved with good, harmful intentions. Both the priest and the doctor want to help, each in his system of reference. The police are interested in helping too, to the best of their ability. In the end, it's hard to blame or hate anybody for the strange turn of events. Even the priest (Valeriu Andriuta) draws some sympathy for his apparent lack of options. But hey, there is a bright side to this bleak work of art, not a masterpiece but still an outstanding work of art: the thin line between desire and rejection drawn by Cosmina Stratan (Voichita) and Cristina Flutur (Alina). Patched with moments of fragile silence and delicate whispers, their relationship evolves into one of the most tender and frightening love stories. Now, who harbors the Devil is still up for debate
Good movie on a complicated story
I think it may make some sense to provide a bit of cultural background to shed some light on this movie, and help people decode it better. As some other viewers already pointed out, the plot is based on a true story. Romanian media ran the story some years ago dubbing it a case of exorcism gone bad. A priest supposedly mistook a form of mental illness for satanic possession, the exorcism performed on the respective nun leading to her death by starvation. In reality, the nun was no such thing, but just a girl visiting the convent. The priest and the other nuns, who after a previous seizure had already referred the woman to a mental hospital, were talked into taking her back after she was discharged. Back at the monastery, the girl had another fit of sorts and they had to restrain her. A few days later she was dead from exhaustion. The court trying the case found the priest and some of the nuns guilty of wrongful death. The entire case was brilliantly documented by former BBC-journalist Tatiana Niculescu-Bran in two books, which the screenplay was based upon. The affair did raise some questions regarding Romanian society, Cristian Mungiu was able to only shed a brief light on those aspects, but I think they are crucially for understanding the context. The priest was somewhat of a maverick in the church. Mungiu implies that by telling that the Bishop would not bless the church, although it is more popular than the churches in the valley, and by having one of the nuns explaining that he has fallen in disgrace after renouncing his pay (Romanian priests are payed by the state). The Romanian region of Moldova is the poorest in the entire European Union, but - and probably for this exact reason - also a religious hotspot. In stark contrast to the poverty stricken people, the Romanian Orthodox Church is one of the richest entities, operating in such lucrative industries like timber, tourism, and manufacturing of religious paraphernalia. Clerics are supposed to be part of the game, when they refuse to do so, they basically get sacked - or, as in the present case, go rogue, retreating to makeshift compounds and recruiting "true" believers. On the other hand, people disappointed by the church's obsession with money tend to be attracted to such rebel priests, seen as more mystical and in line with the biblical way. The fact that the priest was an outcast prevented the church to openly take his side, although they pretty much come to the help of (morally) corrupt men of the cloth. People of a more secular background frown on both kinds of clerics, viewing them as blood sucking opportunists who prey on helpless, naive people. That explains the outburst of the doctor who receives the lifeless body of Alina towards the end of the movie, but also the implication of the foster father of sorts, that the nuns tried to rip her off by charging her more for medication expenses. The relationship between the two girls is psychologically complex. Mungiu leaves some clues for a past love affair, but refrains from being explicit on the matter. The fact that the girls obviously love each other may have a different explanation. Like many other children, they grew up in an orphanage, being abandoned by the poor parents in the last years of the communist regime. Mungiu suggests multiple abuse in the facility and foster families, which we know to massively have occurred in those care homes. Alina came to be the protector of Voichita, who is a perfect victim. She would defend her fiercely and sees her new found "family" as a threat. Being possessive, it is possible that Alinas reaction is based on a jealousy, but she is also ambitious and may experience a sense of failure and guilt - she went abroad, leaving the gullible Voichita at the mercy of the manipulative priest, and now that she wants to take her back, Voichita seems to be firmly controlled by him. So Alina is in a threefold predicament: the backward priest sees her as a threat because she has been infected with Western sins and does not fit in his way of life, threatening his influence on the compound; she fails in convincing Voichita to join her; she has no place to go, having lost her job on a cruise ship in Germany. That could be enough to break a person and send her into despair. Having said that, because at least Romanian viewers generally know the story and the backdrop, they are left only to pass judgement on the way Mungiu told it. In my view he does a good job.
A powerful tale of religious and emotional obsession
Albert Camus said, "The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." These words become prophetic in Romanian director Cristian Mungui's Beyond the Hills, a powerful tale of religious and emotional obsession that leads to tragic consequences. Like his award winning abortion drama, 4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days, the Palme d'Or winner at Cannes in 2007, it is deliberately paced and can be demanding to the viewer unaccustomed to long takes without cuts or camera movements. Set in a remote Orthodox Christian convent in rural Moldova known as New Hill Monastery, Beyond the Hills is a social drama based on two books labeled "nonfiction novels" by Romanian journalist Tatiana Niculescu Bran concerning an exorcism in 2005 that became sensationalized in the press. Filmed in -15 degree weather during the heaviest snow season in years, Oleg Mutu's cinematography makes us feel the bleakness and the cold, damp air inside a convent that has no electricity or running water. As the film begins, Alina (Cristina Flutur) has returned from Berlin to the town in which she grew up. She is met at the train station by Voichita (Cosmina Stratan), her best friend and partner since their years together in an orphanage. Voichita believes she has found her direction, however, in the convent where she is a novice and has become emotionally attached to the priest she calls "Papa" (Valeriu Andriuta) and the mother superior (Dana Tapalaga). Alina, a sometimes believer, has come to rescue her friend from what she feels is the church's domination and is unprepared for Voichita's unwillingness to leave with her and work together on a German cruise ship. She tells Alina that she has found a sense of family and has been changed by her experience. Though she lovingly invites her friend to give herself to the Lord, Alina feels betrayed. A tug of war develops between the church's fear of the "unbeliever", and their wish to provide sanctuary, knowing that Alina has nowhere else to go. Under threat by those around her, Voichita finds herself torn between her one and only friend and her devotion to God. Desperate for affection, Alina flirts with suicide and her growing paranoia makes her suspicious of everyone in Voichita's life. Soon, her repeated fits of hysteria land her in the local hospital, but the anti-psychotic drugs provide only a temporary solution. When the doctors tell the priest that there is nothing further they can do to help, Alina is returned to the convent but the situation does not improve. The distraught girl does leave on her own to go back to her last foster home, but gives up all her possessions and returns to the monastery, unable to stay away from Voichita. Ultimately, the priest is convinced that she is not just a sinner, but one possessed by the devil and must undergo an exorcism. Without her consent, Alina is tied to a cross with ropes and chains and her mouth gagged to prevent her screaming as the service is performed. Beyond the Hills is an intense and haunting film, and the performances of Flutur and Stratan, who shared the Best Actress award at Cannes, add depth and complexity to the film's moral universe. Under Mungui's direction, the film avoids pointing the finger. There are no good guys and bad guys and everyone involved thinks they are acting in Alina's best interests, but they are sadly myopic. Regardless of their good intentions, each character is so caught up in the narrow scope of their vision that they cannot see beyond their immediate self-interest. What becomes lost is the ability to look beyond rituals and forms to find the substance - love, charity, and compassion. According to Mungui, the film "speaks about guilt but is more concerned with love and choices, with the things people do in the name of their beliefs, the difficulty of telling good from bad, understanding religion literally, indifference as an even greater sin than intolerance and freedom of will." When these factors are present, tragedy cannot be far away.
in the heart of Romania
Like with many good films as there are many possible readings of the film and I'm sure its perception and understanding is and will be different depending on the personal experience of the audience, their relationship to the concepts of faith and friendship that are addressed in the film, their knowing of the realities of Romania today. First of all I think this movie should be seen as a work of art, a reflection and an opinion on a piece of reality, there is no judgment or assertion in the film with one exception that I will mention later, no pretend to express an absolute truth about the whole of the reality and even about the small universe of his characters. The viewer is left right to decide or judge, to sympathize or be indignant. Everybody at his own risk. In a way the subject of 'Beyond the hills' takes one of the central themes of '4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days', the friendship between two female characters, two young women barely out of the teens, who must face a world of hazards. Unlike the movie that received the most important prize at Cannes a few years ago, here the heroines are girls much simpler as education, marked by fate from birth, being abandoned in an orphanage, where they become friends, and there are enough clues in the film that shows their relationship becomes more than just a friendship. Fate separates them for a while and when the film begins Alina (Cristina Fluture) returns from Germany to take her girlfriend Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) with her to work abroad. The relationship between Alina and Voichita develops slowly before our eyes. Alina finds Voichita at peace with the world after in a small monastic community between hills, among sister nuns and under the guidance of the priest (Valeriu Andrii) whom affectionately she calls 'Daddy'. The ascetic life of nuns, the caring relationships with the village or small town nearby are described simply and honestly, they seem positive and beneficial in a world that changes to the unknown and not necessarily for the better. It is true that the primary focus is to materiality, to solutions that offer peace and refuge in ritual rather than a deep spirituality, but no other institutions presented in the film (hospitals, police) seem to be able to provide clearer answers or solutions problems faced by people. Despite negative criticism received by the film in Romania, I believe that the approach taken by the script towards the church is at least neutral, if not positive at least up to a point. The friendship or more than friendship, love between two girls will slowly be evolving toward tragedy. Whilst for Alina the love for Voichita is an obsession, Voichita is trying to attract her friend towards the life she had chosen. Mungiu does not give any explanation in terms of the reasons or motivation of Voichita's faith and and also not about Alina's violent outbursts, often they are not shown explicitly, we know they happen through the eyes of other characters. Is this a case of possession, and then resort to exorcism might be motivated, at least in terms of a certain category of religious beliefs? Or maybe it's a mental illness in the family, perhaps hereditary, as suggested by the character of the brother (Ionut Ghinea)? I was taught to believe that diseases can be cured in hospitals or specialized medical institutions, the science sooner or later finds a remedy. None of this happens in the film, profane systems seem to be powerless when faced with Alina's case and appeal to the sacred, even in an extreme form seems justified in the logic of the story. Watershed and breaking is the decision that cancels free will. It is the only time when we feel that Mungiu has an attitude. Everyone is well intentioned when the decision is taken to proceed with exorcism, but the lack of authority to make a decision regarding the fate of a man pushes things a fatal slope. Here comes the extreme, even violent part of the movie, but again it is narrated in a detached manner, with attention to details, especially emotionally significant details. For a moment I felt however that Mungiu's neutrality mask seemed to have fallen. I will not dare describe the many moments of beauty and truth in the film. Mungiu creates together with the operator a life image of the small monasteries that remain imprinted in memory, with the white of the snow righteous unable to purify or even cover horror. The truth will come to light sooner or later in terms of the secular society. Not in terms of spiritual, sacred world, the second half of reality to which the film tries to open a gate. We'll also see in the film many meals, Mungiu's film likes to put people around food, and it presents those by the filter of Christian iconography and lifestyle with amplified significance, but they are devoid of the spiritual dimension, this dimension that is missing in the film despite the presence of institutionalized church. As always for Mungiu and other representatives of his generation, the details are as important as the whole, the secondary characters are as rigorously chosen and each portrait is as living and complex as the lead ones. Acting is impeccable. The Romanian cinema is still on the top of the wave.
Bleak, but Rewarding
'Based on a true story' – a phrase that can cover so many bases - is the slow-burning and languorous Romanian film Beyond the Hills. Set predominantly in a monastery in a bleak and poverty-stricken district, it is a complex and multi-layered film revolving around two young women, Alina and Voichita. Previously childhood friends then lovers, their lives intertwine once more when Alina returns from working in Germany in an attempt to once more enter into a relationship with Voichita who has since taken Holy Orders and is living the chaste and extremely frugal life of a nun. The rekindling of the relationship was always doomed and as Alina's mental health deteriorates with the realisation that she will not achieve her objective, she provokes a series of events culminating in the belief by some that she is possessed and needs cleansing. A Romanian film about faith, despair and unrequited lesbian love in an impoverished monastery was never likely to be an action-packed, sensationalist blockbuster. It is long at 155 minutes and its pace tends to alternate between dead slow and stop. It's the sort of a film which will take over 5 minutes to show a nun leaving the kitchen to draw water from the well and return to the kitchen with no dialogue or plot advancement throughout that period. But it is a film that has the courage to take its time, confident that it can draw you into the lives of the people whose story it tells. And on the whole it succeeds. There are no real villains or heroes in the film. It does not take the easy route to mock and blame religion for out-dated belief – when a nun believes she has been sent a sign from God and goes all peculiar, the Orthodox Priest in charge cuts down the hysteria curtly and tells her and the other nuns to move on. No, the people shown in this film, be they doctors, police or those of the cloth, are portrayed as well-meaning individuals all looking to do no harm even if, like all of us, they can be judgmental and self-righteous on occasion. Beyond the Hills is an unashamedly bleak and ultimately very sad film which gives no answers but merely records events leaving its audience to draw their own conclusions. Cinematography was good, though the constant sound of the ever-blowing wind was sometimes crude and off-putting. And there was an early failure of the sub-titles. When Alina first arrives at the monastery, the camera concentrates on a hand-written sign at its entrance. It's clearly of some import for it to be shown so, but the audience is not let in on its message. Post-film research ascertained it stated, words to the effect: This is the House of God. Forbidden to those of different religion. You must believe and not doubt. It would have explained much.