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A grim and intense story about love, faith, the presence of God and the absence of God, slowly penetrates the viewer's mind, so slowly that it takes Director and Screenplayer Cristian Mungiu more than two hours to make a convincing case for redemption. No doubt that he has a skilled team, to include Oleg Mutu (cinematography). This is not a horror movie; what is horrifying is the knowledge that it is based on a real story of a 2005 Christian Orthodox exorcism gone wrong, somewhere beyond the hills of Moldavia (a region in Eastern Romania). The scariest aspect is that it can happen to you, no need for a monastery or any kind of mental illness. All it takes is to express disdain against a highly controlled environment, the kind of environment that requires continuously patching the stove such that no smoke comes out to spoil the harmony of a strict yet loving family. The movie builds upon the viewer's expectancy that what can go wrong it will, and, with a remarkable lack of explicit violence, creates a gripping parallel reality where all imaginary roads are paved with good, harmful intentions. Both the priest and the doctor want to help, each in his system of reference. The police are interested in helping too, to the best of their ability. In the end, it's hard to blame or hate anybody for the strange turn of events. Even the priest (Valeriu Andriuta) draws some sympathy for his apparent lack of options. But hey, there is a bright side to this bleak work of art, not a masterpiece but still an outstanding work of art: the thin line between desire and rejection drawn by Cosmina Stratan (Voichita) and Cristina Flutur (Alina). Patched with moments of fragile silence and delicate whispers, their relationship evolves into one of the most tender and frightening love stories. Now, who harbors the Devil is still up for debate

Albert Camus said, "The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding." These words become prophetic in Romanian director Cristian Mungui's Beyond the Hills, a powerful tale of religious and emotional obsession that leads to tragic consequences. Like his award winning abortion drama, 4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 Days, the Palme d'Or winner at Cannes in 2007, it is deliberately paced and can be demanding to the viewer unaccustomed to long takes without cuts or camera movements. Set in a remote Orthodox Christian convent in rural Moldova known as New Hill Monastery, Beyond the Hills is a social drama based on two books labeled "nonfiction novels" by Romanian journalist Tatiana Niculescu Bran concerning an exorcism in 2005 that became sensationalized in the press.

Filmed in -15 degree weather during the heaviest snow season in years, Oleg Mutu's cinematography makes us feel the bleakness and the cold, damp air inside a convent that has no electricity or running water. As the film begins, Alina (Cristina Flutur) has returned from Berlin to the town in which she grew up. She is met at the train station by Voichita (Cosmina Stratan), her best friend and partner since their years together in an orphanage. Voichita believes she has found her direction, however, in the convent where she is a novice and has become emotionally attached to the priest she calls "Papa" (Valeriu Andriuta) and the mother superior (Dana Tapalaga).

Alina, a sometimes believer, has come to rescue her friend from what she feels is the church's domination and is unprepared for Voichita's unwillingness to leave with her and work together on a German cruise ship. She tells Alina that she has found a sense of family and has been changed by her experience. Though she lovingly invites her friend to give herself to the Lord, Alina feels betrayed. A tug of war develops between the church's fear of the "unbeliever", and their wish to provide sanctuary, knowing that Alina has nowhere else to go. Under threat by those around her, Voichita finds herself torn between her one and only friend and her devotion to God.

Desperate for affection, Alina flirts with suicide and her growing paranoia makes her suspicious of everyone in Voichita's life. Soon, her repeated fits of hysteria land her in the local hospital, but the anti-psychotic drugs provide only a temporary solution. When the doctors tell the priest that there is nothing further they can do to help, Alina is returned to the convent but the situation does not improve. The distraught girl does leave on her own to go back to her last foster home, but gives up all her possessions and returns to the monastery, unable to stay away from Voichita.

Ultimately, the priest is convinced that she is not just a sinner, but one possessed by the devil and must undergo an exorcism. Without her consent, Alina is tied to a cross with ropes and chains and her mouth gagged to prevent her screaming as the service is performed. Beyond the Hills is an intense and haunting film, and the performances of Flutur and Stratan, who shared the Best Actress award at Cannes, add depth and complexity to the film's moral universe. Under Mungui's direction, the film avoids pointing the finger. There are no good guys and bad guys and everyone involved thinks they are acting in Alina's best interests, but they are sadly myopic.

Regardless of their good intentions, each character is so caught up in the narrow scope of their vision that they cannot see beyond their immediate self-interest. What becomes lost is the ability to look beyond rituals and forms to find the substance - love, charity, and compassion. According to Mungui, the film "speaks about guilt but is more concerned with love and choices, with the things people do in the name of their beliefs, the difficulty of telling good from bad, understanding religion literally, indifference as an even greater sin than intolerance and freedom of will." When these factors are present, tragedy cannot be far away.

It is a sad story told in a fair way. You see the two characters desperately trying to save each other, but also desperately trying to keep themselves into the "safe bubble" they created around them: Voichita's bubble is the monastery, Alina's bubble is Voichita, the only human being that ever loved her.

It is the story of two girls who grew up in an orphanage (I felt a shiver trying to imagine it) and had few choices at the moment they became adults. The movie lefts many questions open. One of them, the hardest perhaps, is how was it possible that nobody (monastery, hospital, school, foster family, police, etc.) was able to help a girl, while everybody agreed on the fact that she needed help.

Mungiu has managed in his films a perfect balance between portraying specific Romanian social-cultural issues and in the same time rendering them universal for the public abroad. He touches some of the Romanian taboos like the Orthodox church and its often brainwash practises, the efficiency of God-like doctors or the dark side of some of the do-gooders in social aid and work. The irony is that while all the characters in the film proclaim often and loud that they are sympathetic towards the orphan girl they are also the authors of her greatest abuses , from financial rip off to medical neglect or physical restraint .The system itself is rejecting the poorest and most vulnerable young people as is pointed out throughout the film by the recurrent motif of 'we have nowhere to go' leaving them in the hands of an often merciless world .In the very best of tradition of the superstitious Christian Romanian culture the real problems are avoided as they will throw a negative light back on everyone so it is easiest to blame all on evil spirits .The last scene gives a great insight into an emotionally devoid society , when such individual drama will become another media circus headline.

The Romanian film Dupa Dealuri (2012) was shown in the U.S. with the title "Beyond the Hills." The movie was written and directed by Cristian Mungiu.

A better name for this film would have been "Beyond the City," because the movie takes place in a Romanian convent where conditions are basically medieval--no electricity, no running water, no central heating. Ironically, the convent overlooks a modern city. When anyone from the convent visits the city, we are jarred into remembering that the action is happening today, rather than 500 years ago. A group of nuns live in the convent, which is directed by an Orthodox priest and his wife, who is the mother superior.

Two young women grew up together in an orphanage, and then separated. One of the friends, (Volchita, played by Cosmina Stratan) has joined the convent. The other (Alina, played by Cristina Flutur) has gotten work in Germany. When Alina returns to visit Cosmina at the convent, the movie appears destined to be about a liberated woman freeing her more traditional friend from the repressive religious, patriarchal, atmosphere of the convent. That's not the direction the film takes.

We learn that Alina is desperate to be with Cosmina. She wants Cosmina to leave the convent and join her in Germany. It's Alina who is troubled. Cosmina is happy at the convent, and truly believes that Alina belongs there as well.

I assumed that the convent would be a place of repression and degradation, but that isn't the case. The life is hard, but the nuns are not mistreated, and they don't appear to have been brainwashed into accepting the strict rules set down by the priest (played by Valeriu Andriuta).

The interactions between the outsider--Alina--with Cosmina and the nuns and priest take turns and twists that I wouldn't have predicted. It's a hard, cold life at the convent, and this is a hard, cold portrayal of that life, and what happens when that life is disturbed.

Beyond the Hills is a grim, but fascinating, movie about good intentions meeting harsh reality. The acting and cinematography are superb. It's definitely worth seeking out and viewing.

We saw this film at the excellent Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House in Rochester. It will work well on DVD. Beyond the Hills was submitted as the Romanian entry in the 2013 Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category.