THE London Film Festival (8-19 October) opens in church with Wake Up Dead Man. Daniel Craig reprises Detective Benoit Blanc in this third Knives Out instalment. The harsh yet seemingly popular Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin) has been murdered. The assistant priest, Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), gives Blanc a helping hand pursuing truth. Not all of this star-studded cast of Christians love one another. Screening at the Royal Festival Hall, it will, like several other films, also be shown at various UK cinemas.
There are other movies with a religious flavour. An intense Teresa (Noomi Rapace) is the subject of Mother. During a single week of 1948, she strives to found a mission in Kolkata, despite ecclesiastical resistance from a male-run institution. Teona Strugar Mitevska’s film is unlikely to be hagiographical. As Teresa’s inner demons rage, countdown to Day 7 resembles a ticking time bomb about to explode.
The Testament of Ann Lee relates the story of another remarkable woman, from penury in 18th-century Manchester to leading the Shakers in America. Amanda Seyfried has been applauded for a barnstorming performance.
A still from The Stranger
In contrast to these faith-based pictures comes The Stranger, a film adaptation of Albert Camus’s existential novel. In 1930s French-controlled Algeria, Meursault (Benjamin Voisin) believes that the only meaning there is arises from what we ourselves construct. It should be interesting watching how François Ozon handles these ideas and whether, as Camus remarked, Mersault is the only kind of Christ we deserve.
The Devil Smokes (and Saves the Burnt Matches in the Same Box) centres on five siblings dumped on their chaotic grandmother by parents caught up in the fervour surrounding Pope John Paul II’s Mexican visit. Whether godliness prevails for these children or they end up like burnt matches looks like being a damn close-run thing.
Set in 1916, with Christianity undergirding British patriotism, The Choral concerns a Yorkshire village low on male singers. As they rehearse Elgar’s oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, the writer Alan Bennett’s characters begin to reveal diverse aspects of the protagonist’s soul journey.
A still from Becoming Human
Becoming Human is Buddhism up against progressive Cambodia. A ghost, lamenting the loss of the past, bonds with a young boy in an effort not to discard the nation’s spiritual culture as it faces a changing future.
Sound of Falling adopts a similar meditative approach by contemplating the sacred through landscape. A mix of road movie, metaphysical allegory, and ceremonial, it invites viewers to listen to what the Spirit is saying to us.
The Holy Boy focuses on a bereaved teacher entering a village whose well-being appears connected to the arcane powers of a certain youth. The question remains whether, in the long term, this spiritual gift will be a blessing or a curse.
Marie, a journalist-turned-pastor, has moved from the Ivory Coast to Tunisia in Promised Sky. With compatriots, she befriends an orphaned girl, survivor from a boatload of migrants. They assure her that she is at the right place. “You seek He who fails not . . . the King of Kings for eternity.” Nevertheless, as in many of the above-mentioned films, costly sacrifice and endurance are also involved.
