This film’s Anatoly is a priest who lives among a remote monastic community as prophet and provocateur. Director Pavel Lungin’s story about him is of course a film, but it seems to be of a piece with the great Russian literary tradition. Anatoly’s actions toward the other monks are like those of a wily prankster, yet it is possible to view these affronts as a holy fool’s acts of mercy—exposing the monks’ hypocrisy in order to heal it. Perhaps we are to see Anatoly’s actions as reflections of God’s mercy shouting to a world in which, as Paul Simon wrote, “no one dared disturb the sound of silence.” Yet the humanity of Anatoly comes into deep focus through the ways he himself receives mercy—at the film’s beginning being granted a mocking copy of mercy, then at the end a mercy that is genuine and flows from love. This is a film whose berth is wide enough to contain both the mysteries and the certainties of mercy.
—Brian D.
Arts & Faith Lists:
2010 Top 100 — #33
2011 Top 100 — #77
2016 Top 25 Mercy Films — #24