REVIEW: In Memory of Myself

This new film from rising Italian director Saverio Costanzo is an affecting and original piece of art that may seem odd to a mainstream film audience. Since Kubrick's 2001, filmmakers have been experimenting with original approaches to narrative, though most films still tend to tell stories in familiar ways. In Memory of Myself achieves a victory for the form in that it does that most difficult of cinematic tasks: portraying an internal spiritual and psychological struggle without resorting to plot contrivances, overt narrative conflict or that most deadly explicit of measures, internal monologue. Most filmmakers who try this kind of thing fail. Costanzo doesn't, and it is the most important achievement of this powerful film.

The film concerns Andrea (Christo Jivkov), an novice in the Jesuit Order, which essentially means he is a person traveling between two worlds. Jesuits are notoriously hard on their new initiates, and with good reason. The decision to join a priesthood as demanding as the Jesuits is not one to be taken lightly. As his Father Superior (André Hennicke) tells Andrea more often than not, "You judge the order, but the order also judges you." His first challenge is to spend two weeks in a silent world of routine and contemplation, after which, again in the words of the Father Superior, "You will know if you have a vocation or not". This long period of discernment forms the bulk of the story.

And what a fascinating story it is. Right from the start, we know this is a different kind of film, with little dialogue, action or conflict. Its pace is hypnotic, a word used all-t00-often by critics as a synonym of "boring", but in this case it is entirely appropriate. We are introduced to the routine of waking, work, study, eating and prayer, all of which are taken equally seriously by the initiates. We begin, through Andrea, to know some of the other novices, notably Fausto (Fausto Russo Alesi), who is undergoing his own personal struggle that culminates in a haunting scene of him banging his head repeatedly against the bathroom wall. His fumbling words in class, in which he has to explain a line of scripture, suggest some great spiritual war within him, but the film isn't interested in the specifics, on in the way Andrea sees their external manifestation. Later, we meet the deeply emotional Zanna (Filippo Timi), who struggles to reconcile the cold, distant Jesuit rituals with the Biblical Jesus, a figure that said little about mopping floors, but much about love. Zanna seems to spend more and more time in the infirmary, where it becomes clear that a member of the order is dying.

As time passes, we see Andrea broken down piece by piece. He is lost between the "real world", which he poignantly watches through the windows at the monastery each night, and the spirit world, which seems to him just out of reach. He is cold, observant (his fellow novices think him judgmental), but we know that in order to fully make the transition, he must face aspects of himself he does not wish to face. He must become human in order to become divine. The last act of the film is a masterfully controlled series of affecting images, telling us everything we need to know about Andrea's struggle with no need for dialogue.

Costanzo's control over the film is in fact the most notable element of it. The deliberate, graceful tracking shots and frequent use of subjective camera draw us into this strange world of spirit and mystery. Classical music is used to enhance this strange, medieval life pattern, contrasted sharply with the images of these practitioners of profoundly ancient rituals making use of laptop computers and CD players. Costanzo also steers the plot away from the cliched territory of homosexual desire, something with which the Catholic church has become, somewhat unfairly, associated. He isn't interested in scoring easy PC points, but instead exploring a deep spiritual mystery.

Few films would dare to be this bold.