Graças a Deus

I have followed the events described in this movie through the French press and internet. I knew therefore about the facts and they did not appear as a revelation to me. What surprised me was the quality of the movie. It was very good. It was not an attack towards the institution of the Catholic Church per se. Nevertheless it is critical towards the Church and not as balanced and neutral as it wants to appear. I think that many people will evaluate the film based on their gut feeling for the Catholic Church. The faithful will be offended disbelieving the veracity of the offenses described and attributing them to a hostility against the institution while those in the other end of the spectrum will be happy to see how corrupt the Church really is confirming thus their pre-conceived notions.

Artistically though I consider this movie slightly superior to the Ocsar winning "Spotlight" which dealt with a similar case although on a grander scale and through the view of the investigating journalists rather than the victims. I watched it at the cinema of my neighborhood the first day it opened in Greece. I think that the established film critics of the Athenian press mildly underrated it. This has a positive aspect because when I watched it myself I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of the movie. We were only six in the theatre understandable perhaps because it was Thursday. Greeks are relatively pious by European Union standards and perhaps piety deterred them from going to such a movie. On the other hand they are mostly adherents of the Orthodox variety of Christianity and therefore consider Roman Catholics somewhat heretical and thus they would be glad to watch their dirty linen washed in public. Sociological explanation cuts both ways but personally I wish it finds a large audience in Greece and worldwide because it has the artistic quality and the social concern required to touch thinking people conversant with the problems relevant to excessive deference towards ecclesiastical authority.