The Monk (Dominik Moll, 2011): France

Reviewed by Krista Marquez at the Santa Barbara Film Festival

This film takes the viewer to a dark and cold place of many years ago.  The Monk starts with one man’s dedication to the righteous life he leads, a life without sin.  However, as he is human, Ambrosio is tempted by the devil himself.  Ambrosio’s virtues are put to the test when a new, masked monk arrives at the monastary.

Dominik Moll (Black Heaven, Lemming) sets the overall tone of the film with dark lighting and gothic style architecture.  Taken in as an abandoned baby, Ambrosio becomes a well respected priest among the Capucin monks.  He is revered for his strong will and eloquent speeches.  He also proves to be a merciless powerful figure when he harshly sends a pregnant nun to starve in the dungeons below.  Moll embellishes the chilling story when he introduces the newest arrival: a monk who wears a mask because of a so-called sensitive skin disease.  It turns out that the monk is the devil, personified as a beautifully seductive woman, to bring Ambrosio to the dark side, setting up temptation after temptation.

Vincent Cassel convincingly plays the character of Ambrosio as a man of virtue who loses his morally religious strength to the physical cravings of sex, more or less.  This story is similar to that of the book of Genesis in the Bible, narrating man’s sacrilegious fall as a result of the woman temptress and deceiver.

What I liked about this film was the complete turnaround that happened from beginning to end.  The fatal corruption that takes place in a rightfully deemed setting of isolation and morality could very well be the lives of many, a subject that influences one’s own morality.  Beautiful cinematography paired with artistic acting create this odd but fascinating film some might dislike, in regards to its melancholy.  Sinfully appetizing.