Paradise: Faith

Anna Maria works as an X-ray technician at a hospital. She spends her holiday doing missionary work: she goes door to door with a statue of the Virgin, visits people and tries to talk. Her house is orderly and quiet; in the evenings she prays and punishes herself. Then her husband comes back. Nabil left years ago and is now in a wheelchair; he is Muslim and moves back in. Two separate orders are set up in the same house and neither of them gives way. Ulrich Seidl directs. Maria Hofstätter plays Anna Maria and Nabil Saleh plays Nabil. It is an Austrian production. The film is the second link in a trilogy and won an award at the Venice Film Festival. On release it became the subject of a legal complaint in Italy over one scene; the narrative works directly with religious symbols. Seidl's method holds here: fixed and symmetrical frames, long takes and dialogue open to improvisation. The matter it works at is what belief does to a person; the film neither defends it nor mocks it. The door to door sections were shot with real people and the reactions were not staged. The conflict in the house is at the centre and neither side is put in the right. Who it is for: viewers who like Austrian art cinema and distanced narrative. Who it is not for: some scenes are uncomfortable, the register is cold, and the narrative offers no resolution.