One of the best films i have seen

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

This is an Orthodox movie in its core, and it might not appeal to people of different religious backgrounds. Orthodox church is not a church of comfortable and simple, but ridiculous answers. Its path is hard and full of obstacles, and the fight for salvation, is life long. Of course, this is completely opposite to evangelical, easy fix theology that calms the minds of the naive folk. This movie is not an advert for converting to the Orthodox faith. How could it be? All three monks that we see in this movie are struggling to understand their spiritual journey.Being religious is a tough gift, not for the faint of heart.

As from the beginning I feel the dramatic power of this film. It was unusual, melancholic and deeply Christian. Opening scene when old man pray his repentance to Jesus Christ with dramatic music in the background is very emotional and strong, not saw in a long time such a dramatic opening scene.This is a story of sin and repentance of an old man which destiny is set in Russian monastery on isolated island. Old man, called Anatoli from sinner developed to a saint who become a charismatic healer, which people visiting from far away. At the near end of the movie Anatoli exorcise the demons from one town girl.Through the entire movie is present kinda melancholic atmosphere. The setting is cold and isolated and the characters are interesting. Main role Anatoli giving such a naturalistic and convincing performance, he honestly deserve Oscar for foreign performance.I recommend this movie to all fans of European art movies with strong performance and of course to all Christian, especially Ortodox ones.

It is a wonderful picture, a masterpiece. It is the first picture where I saw people make orthodox cross. One of any picture who praise Iisus Hristos, the son of God. Here in orthodox world, (only in Romania we have over 1000 monasteries) we are very faithful to Iisus Hristos and this picture is a blessing for our souls. After I had been seen this picture, I believed the actor in prime role is a real monk. I heard Piotr Mamonov played in a rock band (in my opinion rock music is synonym to devil) and in this picture he find the God. Father Anatolie transfigured the irreligious to a faithful person. And the white-black image transform the picture in more veridical story. Maybe only Andrei Rubliov equal this picture. In this picture we will see the difference between the oriental people who believe in Iisus Hristos (who is the head of the orthodox church) and occidental people who does not go to pray the God in church and they will be only a good citizen. I understand the fact Piotr Mamonov after this picture he go to a monastery and suffer a total transformation. I believe (maybe I am wrong) only people (and only the orthodox) who lived in communism understood the real message of this picture: nothing is possible without God and Iisus Hristos and the world is full of sacraments. This sacraments are not possible to resolve by rational and cold minds of thousand academicians.

This movie just arrived to Mexico and since I read very good reviews here about it I decided to go watch it with my friends and girlfriend, but i was greatly disappointed, I don't understand how people can rate it 10/10 I mean screenplay and directing were beautiful, but a great overall movie need a good story which this flick lacked altogether.I've enjoyed several dramatic Asian and European films but they had a good story, watch this movie at your own risk unless you are eastern European or orthodox i don't think you will like it.Half the people on the theater left including my 4 friends who waited outside since they were really bored so was I but I always wait till the end of the movie.Regarding the movie, it was extremely slow paced, with a lot of time wasting scenes, the full length of the story could have been shown in no more than 40 minutes, but they made it longer by having scenes of the monk getting coal that is like 15 minutes of the whole movie plus panoramic views and so on, until they made it a full length movie a really boring one.I recommend you listen to me if you still watch it come back and rate this comment as useful after wards to help people avoid this waste of money.