The monkIn the Holy Bible, the Book of Job describes a man beset by trials and tribulations, for he is the battleground in one of many skirmishes between God and Satan, where the spoils of war are souls. Job resists the pulls to denounce God in the face of terrible misfortune, and his faith is tempered in the flames of that ordeal. Brother Ambrosio (Vincent Cassel) is not possessed of such a fortitude of the spirit, contrary to his proud assertions that Satan has no power we do not give to him. The Monk--adapted from the original Gothic novel by Matthew Lewis--is the story of Ambrosio's plummeting from vaunted cleric to detestable monster.
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The Monk drinks deep from its source material, which was a monumental--and yet oft forgotten--entry into the annals of literature. Before Stephen King, before Bram Stoker, before them all was Matthew Lewis, himself a figure who would have made a significant subject of a novel. His wildly imaginative novel presented a far more dramatic and grandiose display of gothic horror, replete with manifestations of ghosts, demons, murder, incest, and perhaps the first literary example of a priest portrayed not as a benevolent figure, but ultimately as the villain; Dominik Moll's film adaptation of The Monk does not stray far from these shocking roots. The prologue of the film identifies Ambrosio as an orphaned child left outside a Capucino monastery in Spain, just on the cusp of the 17th century. He carries a hand-like birthmark on his right shoulder, interpreted differently by the monks to read as a mark of evil or the hand of the Virgin Mary. The irony is that as Ambrosio becomes older--and exemplifies himself to be a paragon of virtue and proselytizer of the glories of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary--it is a woman who initiates his downfall. An early scene where he takes the confessions of nuns in an order visiting the monastery reveals to him that one such nun, Agnes (Roxane Duran), is with child courtesy of her secret lover. Ambrosio's refusal to conceal her sin results in her imprisonment by the prioress, which in turn leads to her death. Her curse upon Ambrosio to suffer the flames of Hell for her ill treatment might just well be the catalyst for his inevitable fate. I say that this fate is inevitable, because regardless of Agnes' tragic end and condemnation of the pious monk, he invites sin into his life, whether he is willing to admit it or not, even to himself. A new acolyte into the order--Valerio (Déborah François)--confesses to Ambrosio that the reason for choosing this monastery to begin monastic training was in the interest of being close to him, a thought which confuses Ambrosio and makes him uncomfortable. It is when Valerio reveals to Ambrosio that she is a woman that he initially turns her out--without hesitation--but not without honoring her request to keep a rose from his beloved garden, a request which results in his becoming envenomed by a poisonous centipede. Valerio (called Matilda in the novel by this point) takes the poison in herself to save him, but manipulates the faltering monk into allowing her to stay in disguise should she allow herself to be cured. As Valerio sucks the poison from Ambrosio's hand, he hallucinates, and envisions himself making love to the woman who revealed herself as Valerio; as one poison is withdrawn, another enters. The purging of this venom from his body is also metaphorically relevant, as it signifies his own sexual repression being released. But by this point, the thin wedge of sin has stuck its point deep into the challenged monk's soul, and it has but to leverage his lust against his piety.
Ambrosio's tale is the star of The Monk, but there is also the story of Antonia (Joséphine Japy), a young girl who finds she is moved by Ambrosio's sermons, and believes that his words--and through him, the words of God--can ease her mother's soul as she prepares to pass on to the afterlife. She is courted by the handsome noble, Lorenzo (Frédéric Noaille), who romances her but affords her the distance to make her decisions about her affections. As Ambrosio recalls a recurring dream of a girl in a red cloak, he eventually discovers that this dream is of Antonia, and that his initial descent into lust in the arms of Valerio has resulted in barely restrained urges in the presence of the virtuous maiden once they do meet. The Monk touches on the key points of the novel, although other unspoken connections strengthen this obsession with Antonia. In the novel, Ambrosio adores a painting of the Virgin Mary with such fervor, it borders on desire. When Matilda reveals herself to him, she appears not unlike the Madonna, and by the point Ambrosio finds himself alone with Antonia, he has fallen so far in his descent into depravity that he takes her by violent force. Although periodically punctuated by moments of bright daylight, the majority of the scenes in The Monk are set at night, with scenes that are exceedingly dark. It is as if the movie were drenched in darkness, shadows draped over Ambrosio's world as he begins his nocturnal transgressions. Many shots present the hooded monk by silhouette, a shadow treading over the city streets, a wraith-like figure which would inspire fear and not holiness, intimating the corruption doomed to overtake him. As if in homage to the novel--as the progenitor of gothic horror--the film often presents scenes with an irising effect, a cinematic convention often associated with the advent of movies, which also implies an eye opening and closing upon Ambrosio; whether it is the eye of God or Satan, who can say. The Monk asks the question of those who would claim the moral high ground and cast judgment over another that if the situations were reversed, would you feel the same? In other words, "let he is without sin cast the first stone". Job 1, Ambrosio 0.
Recommended for: Fans of a surprisingly dark and haunting literary adaptation of a oft-neglected work of classic literature and arguably the source of the horror genre of fiction as we know it. It is a moody piece which prompts questions about piety and judgment over others in the name of religion--a provocative and startling portrayal of both religious hypocrisy and supernatural horror.
Ambrosio's tale is the star of The Monk, but there is also the story of Antonia (Joséphine Japy), a young girl who finds she is moved by Ambrosio's sermons, and believes that his words--and through him, the words of God--can ease her mother's soul as she prepares to pass on to the afterlife. She is courted by the handsome noble, Lorenzo (Frédéric Noaille), who romances her but affords her the distance to make her decisions about her affections. As Ambrosio recalls a recurring dream of a girl in a red cloak, he eventually discovers that this dream is of Antonia, and that his initial descent into lust in the arms of Valerio has resulted in barely restrained urges in the presence of the virtuous maiden once they do meet. The Monk touches on the key points of the novel, although other unspoken connections strengthen this obsession with Antonia. In the novel, Ambrosio adores a painting of the Virgin Mary with such fervor, it borders on desire. When Matilda reveals herself to him, she appears not unlike the Madonna, and by the point Ambrosio finds himself alone with Antonia, he has fallen so far in his descent into depravity that he takes her by violent force. Although periodically punctuated by moments of bright daylight, the majority of the scenes in The Monk are set at night, with scenes that are exceedingly dark. It is as if the movie were drenched in darkness, shadows draped over Ambrosio's world as he begins his nocturnal transgressions. Many shots present the hooded monk by silhouette, a shadow treading over the city streets, a wraith-like figure which would inspire fear and not holiness, intimating the corruption doomed to overtake him. As if in homage to the novel--as the progenitor of gothic horror--the film often presents scenes with an irising effect, a cinematic convention often associated with the advent of movies, which also implies an eye opening and closing upon Ambrosio; whether it is the eye of God or Satan, who can say. The Monk asks the question of those who would claim the moral high ground and cast judgment over another that if the situations were reversed, would you feel the same? In other words, "let he is without sin cast the first stone". Job 1, Ambrosio 0.
Recommended for: Fans of a surprisingly dark and haunting literary adaptation of a oft-neglected work of classic literature and arguably the source of the horror genre of fiction as we know it. It is a moody piece which prompts questions about piety and judgment over others in the name of religion--a provocative and startling portrayal of both religious hypocrisy and supernatural horror.