Suddenly, Ulrich Seidl's discombobulating Paradise trilogy feels like, well, paradise. This compelling German drama opens with a scene that probably looks familiar to most Christians: a young priest (Florian Stetter) is sitting at a table surrounded by teenagers who, we soon learn, are about to make their Confirmation.
But something is amiss. It sounds off when he starts using old-time religion speak about Soldiers of Christ and when he asks his charges to emulate the Mexican Cristeros. It sounds weirder still when he encourages the children to chastise fellow classmates for listening to the satanic rhythms of modern music. And finally, it sounds completely bananas when he starts banging on to the effect that “the devil himself entered the church” at Vatican II.
He goes on to chastise a clearly underweight 14-year-old girl for thinking to eat, when she might instead “be making more room in her heart for Jesus”.
That exchange sets Maria, the film’s heroine, on a tragic trajectory that loosely follows the sequence described by the title. Maria (the remarkable Lea van Acken) belongs to a dangerous and radical Catholic sect, a cult that believes that illness is “a punishment for our sins” and that “gospel music is evil”.
At home, her abusive mother (Weisz) denounces the horrors of same-sex education and acts as a kind of witchfinder general on behalf of her faith, a faith that forbids altar girls lest they distract the male parishioners. Her youngest son, who Maria adores, has never spoken. Specialists suggest testing for autism. But we seldom hear anyone in the family speak, as every utterance is twisted into a sin by the controlling matriarch.
While studying quadratic equations, Maria attracts the attentions of a male classmate who asks her to join a choir. This invitation ultimately only adds to the girl’s tragedy.
Never mind last month's batch of Halloween horrors: the most harrowing film of late 2014 is Stations of the Cross. A maddening, upsetting depiction of blind ideological allegiance, superbly shot in (mostly) static single takes, it resonates far beyond the parameters of the oddball sect it depicts. Against this – and somewhat perversely – the screenplay, co-written by the director and his sister, Anna Brueggemann, is peppered with dark humour and sneaky blasphemy: Maria's would-be suitor is called Christian; more than once, her mother strays into the realm of cartoon super-villain; and the final twist works to invite the viewers' own comic trombone wah wah.
