This is the true story of eight monks living near the small village of Tibhirine, Algeria, serving God and the local Muslim population in the 1990's. We get to watch them in their daily chores of tending to the health needs of the people in their clinic, plowing and sowing the fields, watering their garden, canning honey for sale in the marketplace, praying and regularly singing hymns in praise of God. Seems 7 out of 8 of them have beautiful, rich, melodic voices. The eighth, the asthmatic doctor/monk does not appear in the chapel with the rest of them during their regular intervals of musical praise to the Lord. They quietly accept their commitment to service and modest living.
This idyllic life changes when Islamic extremists act to overthrow a corrupt government and replace it with a fundamentalist extremist regime. They commit several acts of terrorism against their own people and eventually pose a threat to the existence of the monastery and the very lives of the monks. The film then veers from the day-to-day chores of monks to a philosophical discourse among them on the pros and cons of martyrdom -- if it comes to that.
'Of Gods and Men' does not probe the roots of terrorism in Algeria or among Muslims in general. Terrorism is a threat that tests Christian men's souls, attacking non-revolutionary Muslims and infidels alike. Violence is suggested rather than witnessed . It is a tribute to the monks who have to make the decision to either flee Algeria to go back to France and continue their work at another mission or stay come what may. This real life story can be taken as a metaphor for all missionaries caught in the cross-fire of political upheaval in a foreign land. Only one brief comment is made by a local government official to one of the monks regarding French imperialism in Algeria as being a cause of the resulting revolutionary action. It is a tribute to monks in foreign lands, not in converting heathens, but in serving God through serving them.
Of Gods and Men
Director / Writer: Xavier Beauvois
Cast: Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin, Philippe Laudenbach, Jacques Herlin, Loic Pichon, Xavier Maly, Jean-Marie Frin, Abdellah Moundy
Rated: PG-13
Time: 120 min.
Opening March 4 at the Embarcadero in San Francisco
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