À l'Ombre des Séraphins

The concept of corruption, greed and evil in a Theological college is an interesting one. The problem with this is the way the story is told. There is minimal dialog, the scenes are loosely linked so continuity becomes difficult, and most of the time, the script and dialog appears to be improvised. It is a low budget production, but one that could have been "glued" together much better!

From the first frame of the film you know that this will be a good movie. Don't get fooled by the title, this is not a movie about religion or church, it's about people that run religion, people that take advantage on religion and people that want to become part of religion. It's sprinkled with sex, alcohol and other deeds that a young man who aspire to become an orthodox priest should stay away from, but let's not spoil it too much.

There are a lot of great characters played by young skillful actors, but on top of them all sits the Vlad Ivanov who delivers a great performance and manages to take this movie to another level and proves again that he is one of the best romanian actors.

I recommend this movie especially to non-romanian people. It's a good peep hole to romanian church, corruption and culture, even more because it's inspired by a true story.

Finally a new take on romanian movies. Loved the story, the acting and the actors, very very good job!!

I dreaded that the film is going to be about another over-dramatised and falsely advertised misconducts in the Orthodox Church BUT it wasn't! I dislike commercial films where you're forced to give up one and a half hour from your life or even more for another cliché ending or nothing. The actors play their roles authentically, the story could have been detailed more and the ending is gripping as well. Music in films are important to me, so it's well chosen and makes you think a bit about the film next day after you've watched it. I recommend it!

This was pretty good, I really liked how the producers realized everything. It was very thrilling, with some cliches, but, still, very good for Romanian potential. Good job for the crew, regarding the cast, most of the young actors played some interesting roles and the storyline is very dramatic. I recommend this for every movie enthusiast that is looking for something new, because, I repeat, this is Romanian cinematography and, it is far different from other countries.