Inspiring Moves I Have Watched As Of Late

I watched Of Gods And Men a few weeks ago with the hubby. It is about 8 French Monks who lived in North Africa in a monastery in a predominately Muslim area. An Islamic Fundamentalist group begins to massacre foreign workers and fear begins to take hold of the region. The monks fear for their lives, but come what may, they refuse the army's protection and stay put in the monastery. This film is loosely based on the life of  Cisterian monks in Algeria, from 1993 until their kidnapping in 1996.

Of Gods And Men  focuses not only on the event but on how the priests came to their heroic decision to stay put. Because of this plot, the movie is a bit slow moving. In fact, extremely slow at times. But it is such a powerful movie, about God and faith, that I am so glad I took the time to watch it. It leaves you wondering if you are doing what you are called of God to do or if you are just taking the easy way out.

I recommend it to anybody that can deal with slowish heavy movies. People who like to get life changing lesson from movies. And to anyone that can deal with subtitles as it is a French movie.

You can get this movie through Netflix but you can not stream it.

Katyn is another heavy movie that I watched with the husband. Katyn is about the 1940 massacre of captured polish army officers in the Katyn Forest. It is a mix of narrative and documentary style filming. It tells the story from the point of view of a few wives of the officers, as well as the officers themselves.

Katyn is a well done, powerful movie. All sorts of emotions are present in this film and no detail was left untouched. The producers did not seek to hide the truth, the pain, nor the violence and hate behind it. While it is a movie, and not an actually documentary, I feel like I have discovered a new piece of history to study and learn about.

I recommend this movie to anybody that likes history, especially WWII history. Beware though, it is very violent at parts, especially the last 5-10 mins. As I said above, they do not seek to hide or cover up anything, so while the violence isn't necessarily blood and gore, it is very blunt and visible, almost shockingly so. It does not seek for a happy ending nor should it considering the topic. I would not recommend letting your kids view this movie with you.

Is is also subtitled and because of that the movie is sometimes a bit hard to follow. But if you like these sorts of movies, I do believe it is worth watching at least once.

If you hurry up, this movie is available on Netflix streaming for the next few days.