Swanvale Halt Film Club: Beyond the Hills (2012)

A stray mention in a magazine describing a film festival in London led me to Beyond the Hills, a dour but compelling description of sad events in a Romanian convent. Alina and Voichita grew up in the same orphanage, but since leaving their lives have taken different courses, Alina going to Germany to work and Voichita becoming an Orthodox nun. Alina comes back to find her friend, and brings disturbance to her and the life of the convent, which eventually results in tragedy.

The style is ultra-realistic and yet despite a complete lack of cinematic tricks and fireworks and a very understated mode of acting the film manages to be fascinating, probably because the story and characters are so real and involving. So they should be - the inspiration came from the terrible events of the Tanacu exorcism which took place in 2005, and it's a jolt sometimes to remember that despite the nuns' almost medieval lifestyle with drawing water from a well, shovelling snow and lack of electricity, theirs is actually a new and modern convent not far from a contemporary Romanian town. The town has its own problems: an under-resourced hospital, overworked medical staff, weary police, endless roadworks - the issues of a tired society struggling to make do in a tough and changing world. None of the characters are wicked, and you can see so easily how the little community deprived of both oversight and outside help falls into chaos and horror. In fact you learn very little about people's inner motivations, what is actually happening, even the exact nature of Alina and Voichita's relationship, and that reticence and ambiguity makes the narrative all the more affecting.