By the Grace of God <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star.png"/>

By the Grace of God

A stupidly hot Saturday morning was a great time for the Luna Leederville preview screening of Francois Ozon's new film, By the Grace of God. This is a drama set in Lyon, based on real-life, current events surrounding the crimes of a paedophile priest, Bernard Preynat. The catholic church of Lyon and its high-ranking officials, including Cardinal Barbarin, were found to have known about his actions for some time and not acted upon this knowledge.

The film starts with one of the victims, a now 40-something family man, Alexandre, discovering that the priest who abused him was returning to work with kids in the Lyon area. This sets off a chain of emails and calls to the diocese, culminating in a weird, arranged meeting between Preynat, Alexandre and a church psychologist. The frustrating formality of the church culture in these scenes forces Alexandre's hand and he ultimately feels he needs to involve the law, rather than relying on the church to gets things done. Here's where the film takes an interesting turn by essentially removing Alexandre from the story for a huge chunk of time and leaving another victim, Francois to take up the baton. He is instrumental in creating a support group of fellow victims and this part of the story is then followed by a third victim's section. Emmanuel is the most troubled of the three and the scenes of his epilepsy and social interactions make for some awkward viewing.

The title of the film refers to a statement made by Barbarin at a press conference, where he seemed to be relieved that most of the crimes were committed outside the statute of limitations in French law. The film explores the role of the church in covering up the crimes in a similar way to Spotlight, though that film focussed more on the journalists breaking the story in Boston than on victims themselves. The relationships in the film - Alexandre and wife, Marie; Francois and his parents; Emmanuel and his girlfriend - are key. They highlight the real, natural connections made by choice, as opposed to the sickness (Preynat's own words) of the priest's actions.

Ozon had heaps of trouble bringing By the Grace of God to screens. In an interview with the Observer, he says,

“There were two court cases, but each time there has been legal action the judges have found in our favour. Fortunately.”

It appaers all the church's platitudes are just lip service, designed to placate and hinder victims and their families. Alexandre's son's final question to his father is pretty notable - "Do you still believe in god?" Ozon's decision to leave it unanswered is cleverly designed to let the viewer decide.

See also:

Another Ozon film, Swimming Pool (2003) and Tom McCarthy's Spotlight (2015).

SPOILERS IN POD!!!

Listen to "By the Grace of God" on Spreaker.

Comments

Life is Life

Here's another serving from the Italian Film Festival , this one set mostly in the fictional town of Bellesammama in Southern Sardinia, the beautiful Spiaggia di Tuerredda standing in for the beach paradise. The recognisable story goes that a rich company wants to buy up the land on the beach to build a resort, promising to create jobs and bring untold wealth to the struggling area. Everyone is confident things will be done and dusted in no time until the real estate company runs up against an immovable object, old farmer Efisio (Giuseppe Loi). Offered ever increasing sums of Lira, then as time goes on, Euros, he rejects all. This is his home, he doesn't need anything else. The townsfolk cajole Efisio and chivvy his daughter Francesca (Virginia Raffaele), hoping they'll see reason. The head of the Milanese real estate firm, Giacomo (Diego Abatantuono), sends a foreman, Mariano (Aldo Baglio) to sort things out, and even enlists the local mayor and police. No dice. Althoug...

Resident Evil

This latest Resident Evil is a slight zombie viscera flick that doesn't really say much but is a bit of fun anyway. Director Zach Cregger impressed with Weapons , and folk have good things to say about his film before that, Barbarian , too (I'm yet to watch). His latest is a reboot, retool, reimagining, however you'd like to put it, of the film series spawned from the game in 2002, that eventually mutated to six entries, all gamely starring Milla Jovovich. Now before this new iteration, I'd only seen that first one, but quite possibly one or two more (like the creatures in the film, I'm guessing they all meld together). My gaming credentials are even more paltry - I seem to remember playing a version once years ago, but it could have been any zombie shooting game. So drawing a long bow, I'm going to say this one aims more for the shits and giggles than the others, borrowing from Cregger's previous life as a comedy actor/writer/director. Austin Abrams plays ...

Classmates

This solid, if not super original, slice of high school life in gritty Euro-environs looks to be a change of tack for director Umberto Riccioni Carteni. Much of his back catalogue appears to be on the frothy end of the spectrum, and oddly, Classmates is listed as a 'Drama, Comedy' in the festival programme. It's not all that heavy but it's a stretch to call it a comedy. It starts with English teacher, credited as Professoressa (Anna Ferzetti) arriving at her new school in a rough-ish area of north-east Rome called Rebibbia. The final year students of this class are generally downheartened nihilists, all carrying problems related to poverty, drugs or family. A more difficult start might have been expected for the Prof but most of her students respond well to her, due to a policy of treating them like humans, not the garbage they (and other teachers) believe they are. A familiar trope of students shouting at each other, insulting and threatening, soon shows itself to be...

The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan is one of the few active directors who can entice punters to the cinema (along with Denis Villeneuve), and they've come out in droves for his latest, a retelling of Homer's The Odyssey . Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who is co-opted to join his overlord, Agamemnon, in his attack on Troy. After near 10 years of siege, culminating in the Trojan Horse event, the silly bastard then decides to take the scenic route home, and gets plumb lost. What follows is a technically brilliant rendering of mythical nonsense made to feel real. Odysseus's mini-fleet of three ships and maybe 100 (?) men run into several hardships, notably the Cyclops; a small army of huge men called the Laestrygonians; the sorceress, Circe; and some salacious sea nymphs. These set pieces are fantastic, especially the Cyclops (played by TARS voice from Interstellar , Bill Irwin), and Circe's cottage, where she has a way with greedy menfolk. Samantha Morton is almost best...

Coyote vs. Acme

While there have been loads of Looney Tunes feature films, this is the fourth to mix live action with the animated favourites. There are two Space Jam films, but if you can remember 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action , you're doing better than me. This new hybrid, directed by Dave Green, stars Will Forte and John Cena as opposing lawyers in a case brought against Acme by Wile E. Coyote. Oddly, this film is actually based on an article for the New Yorker magazine, written by Ian Frazier, about the downtrodden desert dog and his annoyance with Acme Corporation and their faulty products. I realise that some younger crew will have no idea of the content of the Looney Tunes Road Runner cartoons, so to sum it up: "Road Runner, the Coyote's after you. Road Runner, if he catches you, you're through." Yep, it's a classic, constant chase, and as this film posits, maybe the chase is the point. Logically, and in nature, the coyote would probably eat the bird, if i...

Queen: Budapest

Pure class. A Hungarian director, János Zsombolyai, and his crew filmed Queen's concert at Népstadion in Budapest in 1986 with a fair number of 35mm cameras. It's recently been finessed for IMAX and the result is a bloody ripping concert film. There's a short preview promo featuring sit-down interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor and then the concert begins. The band played this unprecedented gig at the end of July, just a couple of weeks after their Wembley sets, and as part of the Magic Tour. It was one of the first stadium concerts played behind the Iron Curtain by a 'Western' band, and apparently around 80,000 punters turned up, with more than half that number listening from outside the stadium. The band run through a typical set list of favourites, starting with One Vision , Tie Your Mother Down , and (my favourite from the gig) Seven Seas of Rhye . Other belting highlights include Under Pressure , Now I'm Here , Hammer to Fall , and Radio Ga Ga . Watch...

Dune

Denis Villeneuve's long-awaited Dune finally arrives in Australian cinemas and it's a technical marvel. To start with, there's the amazing production design by Patrice Vermette. A lot of the sets and machinery have been physically created, to add weight to the visual effects. A highlight is the appearance of the 'ornithopter', a clunky, dragonfly of metal, that flaps its wings to fly. The scale of the buildings and cities is mammoth, many of them made on a studio lot in Budapest (see this Architectural Digest article for more). The cinematography, by Melburnian, Greig Fraser, is suitably magic, in keeping with Villeneuve's stylistic requirements, For example, desert scenes have a tendency to go all wind-whipped and blurry, but even when a dragonfly enters a storm, acuity is admirably maintained. The visuals are just a part of Villeneuve's signature language - the almost ethereal long shots across vast rooms and landscapes; the measured, even slow paci...

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Well, well, well. This thing has done some business. It's currently SIXTH in all time worldwide receipts, with Titanic in its sights. But, of course, it's problematic to rely on public opinion as a judge of quality. Or maybe that's just me. Because I found this new Spider-Man film to be just slightly above average. They are quite a few positives to take from it. Tom Holland has a winning presence, the omnipotent Zendaya is his equal (they have some nice moments together), and the cameos are fun - Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, and John Bernthal's Punisher big screen debut. Aside from the performances, the city of New York is almost another character, and it's portrayed lovingly here. The jumpy, swingy scenes feel more realistic than previous films, and there's a dark edge to the story as well, to do with change and maturity. The first grown-up Spider-Man? On that note, I read his situation as a late arrival at puberty. Bear with me...

Migration (Me) (Kids)

A whole family trip to the cinema for this animated duck movie, written by Mike White (of The White Lotus fame) and directed and co-written by Benjamin Renner. It's a fairly simple storyline - mum and ducklings fancy a trip to Jamaica, risk-averse dad is reluctant. Of course, for the sake of the plot, dad comes around. The journey is physical as well as offering a chance to experience personal (duckal?) growth - the spirit of adventure is enhanced, and the kids, mainly the older lad, transition from childhood to adulthood. There are numerous POV flying scenes - through clouds, between buildings in New York, in a nightmarish kitchen, down water slides, through a jungle - seriously, it's enough to make an adult dizzy. Admittedly though, it feels kind of reductive to even talk about all this as a grown up human. The colours, sounds, Looney Tunes style sight gags, are all mechanically tooled for little grommets to lap up, let's face it, this type of film isn't for the lik...

Prometheus

It has taken me a few days to start this entry as I needed to ponder a number of issues. Without thinking too much about it, I really enjoyed Prometheus . It looked great (2D), the cast was pretty solid, Fassbender excellent, but I'll return to him later and the story was satisfying in its connection to, and, at the same time, its distancing from Alien . Let me explain that last messy clause. I think you can watch this without any knowledge of the Alien series but as most of us over 20 know about the other films, its quite good fun to recognise the hints and echoes throughout. The only slight issues I have are regarding the details in the story. Here's where it may get a little/very SPOILERY, so please look away if you haven't seen the film. Firstly, the religious angle irritated me a bit but I guess if you're investigating the origin of humanity, you might at least pay lip service to "the great magic". And of course, Christianity is at the heart of the ...

Film Shapes

Search This Blog