Don't resist, child. Review of the film ”By the Will of God”
Francois Ozon's name in the “director” column often says a lot about the film even before watching it: undoubtedly something emotional, extremely tense, sometimes overly sentimental, perhaps even deliberately tasteless awaits us. One of the main French directors of our time has always been famous for expressive thrillers, diluted with black humor, which made him the heir to Hitchcock and Romer at the same time. There is one more feature of the films of this master: they are all, one way or another, about women. However, the new work is completely different from what the director did before. "By the Will of God", awarded the Grand Prix of the Berlin Film Festival, is a picture of exceptional restraint, restraint and seriousness, a judicious and sobering exploration of male fragility.A story based on proven facts illuminates the dark side of the church, namely pedophilia, which even Pope Francis admits to being prevalent among clergy. Yes, "By the Will of God" can be safely dubbed the French "In the Spotlight", which received the main Oscar in 2016. Ozone, of course, knew that comparisons would be inevitable, and in one of the key scenes he placed a poster for an American film, once again emphasizing that irony is not alien to him. The main difference between "By God's Will" and "In the Spotlight" is that Ozon's narration is from the perspective of the victims, not professional journalists, which allows the viewer to evoke a much deeper emotional response.  The triptych tells the story of three already grown men who experienced violence many years ago, but could not get rid of the feeling of childhood defenselessness. Alexander (Melville Poupo) is a successful banker, a staunch Catholic and an exemplary family man: he has five children and a loving wife, Marie (Orelia Petit), who supports her husband in everything. When he was a Boy Scout, the priest Bernard Preyna (Bernard Verlet) raped him for three years. Outraged that after years Prein, being already a seventy-year old man, is still reading Mass and working with children, Alexander is trying with all his might to achieve the excommunication of the malicious abuser from the church, and at the same time a personal meeting in order to hear at least an apology. He writes to the Archbishop of Lyons Philippe Barbarin (Francois Martore), but he is not eager to take action. Alexander not only wants to prevent such cases, but also to show his children that there are no taboo topics at the family table. Without noticing it, the man starts a chain reaction, and Francois (Denis Menoche) becomes a link in it. He has the same loving and supportive wife, but the memories of what Preina did to him in childhood still haunt him. Francois is an atheist, and his goal is not as noble as Alexander's: he wants revenge, so that the priest will pay for the harm that has caused hundreds of children. A sudden call from a lawyer announces progress in a pedophilia case in the church, prompting Francois to take action: he becomes the organizer of a support group for all victims of Preina's actions. The third hero of the film was not more fortunate than others. Gilles (Eric Caravaca) was never able to recover from his childhood trauma: he has serious mental problems, a toxic relationship with a girl and difficulties with finding a job. He lives with his mother, which, with the help of newspaper headlines, broadcasts to Gilles the chronicle of the ongoing struggle for justice and against the Catholic Church, which refuses to pay attention to sinners in its circles.  Ozone works in a semi-documentary manner, building up an investigation step by step. Competent distribution of timing between the main characters, played by a trio of first-class French actors, allows the director to play with the tone of the story and experience the feelings of the viewer. So, for example, we become witnesses of Alexander's unpleasant conversation with his parents, who point-blank do not see the meaning of everything that their son has started.“It's just a seventy-year old man”, - the mother concludes, pretending that there was no corruption. Gilles has a completely different relationship with his mother - sympathetic, supportive. At one time, she also did not believe the words of her ten-year-old son that Preyna was touching him, but as soon as the whole picture opened in front of her, she immediately began to fight for her son. "By the will of God" is definitely the most serious work in Francois Ozon's career, one might even say a milestone. Before that, basically all of his films were based on literary sources, but here Ozone took the pen in hand and wrote the script himself. Some moments are described with frightening details that one involuntarily thinks about some autobiographical shades of the work. At the same time, Ozon's signature ironic view of things does not disappear anywhere: one of Francois (the hero's, not the director's) ideas to draw public attention to his organization is to pay the pilots to draw a penis in the sky. And together with the image of the emotional Gilles, the film brings back memories of Ozone's early paintings. Despite the fact that this is a completely new territory for him, the director's handwriting is felt literally in every scene.  Since 2016, Bernard Preina has been under investigation for sexual assault between 1986 and 1991 at the Catholic Boy Scout camp in Lyon, which he ran. Most recently, his lawyers demanded to ban the distribution of the film "By God's Will" in France until the court ruling scheduled for March, because"the guilt has not yet been proven, the cinema accuses a person without reason". But in February, the French still saw the picture in cinemas. The version released in USA this April adds a couple of new lines to the end credits, which the audience of the Berlin Film Festival has not seen. The outcome of the case, admittedly, is appalling. The Topic of Article: Don't resist, child. Review of the film ”By the Will of God”. |
