The Monk (Dominik Moll, 2011): France

Reviewed by Sofia Arnbom. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

The Monk is about a friar who makes a mistake and then begins a journey towards darkness. It is an amazing movie with great cinematography and wonderful actors. During the whole movie you were tensed. The movie is based on a classic Gothic novel written by Matthew G. Lewis.

The story is set in a monastery outside Madrid in the 18th century. The main character is a Franciscan monk named Ambrosio (Vincent Cassel) who was abandoned at the door of the monastery. He is raised by the friars and becomes a skilled preacher. The troubles begin as a boy, Valerio, with a mask arrives to the monastery to “get closer to God”. The novice wears a mask because he was in a fire accident, and has to keep the face out of sunshine. But later it turns out that the novice is a woman (Deborah Francois) who wanted to get closer to Ambrosio. She is trying to seduce Ambrosio to the temptations of the flesh. She succeeds in doing that and soon he has his eyes on a girl, Antonia (Josephine Jappy), who lives nearby in the castle with her mother Elvire (Catherine Mouchet).

There is a conflict between two forces; his  nature instincts and his moral choices. His body wants the girls, but his head is bound to the Virgin Mary and the monastery. Is Ambrosio trapped in the lust for flesh?

The themes in this movie is how to handle your  mistakes, services and favors, and how bad religion can be. It is very clear that there is more in life than being bound to the vows of the religion. Once you have broken them – Satan has you in his arms. There are bad characters, under the influence of Satan the ones who are trying to get Ambrosio to “eat the poison apple”, and some good characters, the angels who is trying to help Ambrosio. The main theme is: Religion sucks.

There are a lot of Gothic symbolism in the movie; ravens for bad omen, flames for sexual desire and gargoyles for grinning evil. There is feeling from the beginning that everything is going the wrong way. The light in the monastery is always very dark, as if there is darkness inside the walls of God’s house. When the scenes are dark – they are really dark, and when the scenes are bright, it is really bright. Symbolic it is, and it fits.

Ambrosio played by Vincent Cassel is very well-played. His appearance and look suits the character and I really wished I spoke french. The language suits the movie, the french pronunciation suits because it sounds beautiful but it is spoken in such a terrifying movie, the mix makes is brilliant.  Cassel has a similar role in The Black Swan. A man who does the wrong choices and gets punished in some kind of way.

The  Monk is an amazing movie with an interesting story, brilliant actors and good points. Everybody should give it a chance. The drama and events are nail-biting and intense. Maybe I should give the book by Lewis a chance…