Mark Reviews Movies: BY THE GRACE OF GOD

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 7, 2019

François Ozon's screenplay for By the Grace of God begins narrowly, with a man who, as a child, suffered sexual abuse by a priest. He is 40 now. He has a good job, a wife, and five children. The statute of limitations on the crimes perpetrated against him has passed, but he also has heard that the priest—whom the man believed had been exiled from France, if not defrocked by the Catholic Church—has returned to the region. Worse, that priest, who caused him levels of pain and confusion and anger and doubt that no one should experience, is working with children again.

The film, also directed by Ozon, is based on a true story. As a definitive assertion of where the filmmaker's sympathies exclusively stand and as to where his ire is directed, the names of the survivors have been changed, but the real names remain for the almost certainly abusive priest (The film was made before the criminal trial, but since then, the priest was found guilty by an ecclesiastical court within the Church) and the archbishop who may have covered up for him (He was found guilty of that crime, but since the conviction is under appeal, he is still presumed innocent from a legal perspective).

The crimes matter. The potential criminals need to be exposed. The survivors deserve their stories to be told, but they also deserve at least some degree of privacy. In coming forward, they were not granted that right in the real world, so Ozon gives at least this much back to them.

Just from this seemingly minor narrative decision, it's little surprise that Ozon's film is as compassionate as it is. This isn't just a recounting of what happened in the past. It's that, but the film is also very much about the present—about how the effects of abuse last, about the pain of feeling alone in that trauma, about deep-seated anger that cannot be overcome, about wanting justice but seeing a system actively working to prevent it. Mostly, though, Ozon, by introducing survivor after survivor whose stories are examined with equal weight, gradually focuses on the power of a community, with a shared goal and a familiar understanding of that pain, that anger, that frustration, and, above all else, that desire to ensure that no one else has to suffer in the same way.

The first survivor we meet is Alexandre Guérin (Melvil Poupaud), the 40-year-old whose life seems, at least on the surface, to be in order. Despite what happened to him, he's still a practicing, devout Catholic. When he learns that Bernard Preynat (Bernard Verley) is back in Lyon—where the basilica stands on a hill, overlooking the city and appearing impervious to anything outside its religious significance—Alexandre begins an email correspondence with Cardinal Barbarin (François Mathouret, who looks eerily like the real man, in addition to Ozon retaining the archbishop's name).

The narrative may dramatize the personal lives and advocacy of Alexandre and the others who follow in this expanding story, but there are sections that play out like an epistolary drama. Emails are sent, replied to, or ignored. The text, narrated by the character who has written the correspondence, often says what the characters can't or won't say face-to-face. Often, it's what isn't said or what seems to contradict some previous statement that matters the most.

The turning point is when the archbishop and a Church mediator named Régine Maire (Martine Erhel), whose real motives are never really clear (Is she mediating to help the survivors, or is she working to mediate the fallout for her superiors?), arrange a meeting between Alexandre and Preynat. The priest, either out of guilt or a belief in his invulnerability after decades have passed, admits to molesting Alexandre. He doesn't, though, ask for his victim's forgiveness, which was the cardinal's entire goal for the meeting.

Months pass. Barbarin becomes less available. Alexandre, knowing that his accusations won't be enough to charge Preynat, files a criminal complaint against the priest.

From that action and from the rumors that begin to spread, others come forward. They include François Debord (Denis Ménochet), another married man who has become an atheist, and Gilles Perret (Éric Caravaca), an accomplished surgeon who joins François in starting a support group of Preynat's victims. Later, Emmanuel Thomassin (Swann Arlaud), who might be young enough that the statute of limitations still applies to the crimes against him, comes forward.

Their stories are depressingly similar: The priest abused them in a photo lab and/or at a camp for scouts—a group he oversaw. The survivors' lives may have diverted in significant ways (Some are family men, while Emmanuel has difficulty maintaining any kind of relationship), but while the trauma may be more apparent for some (such as a deformity that Emmanuel may have developed as a result of the abuse) than others, there is no denying that it exists for all of them.

One thing is a constant, and that's the long-standing silence from the survivors, their family members (some of whom knew or at least suspected what was happening at the time), and the Church. We easily come to comprehend why the men remained quiet—a sense of shame and a feeling that they wouldn't be believed. Ozon extends that sympathy to the parents of these men, who either tried something—and believed they had succeeded—or couldn't imagine such a thing being true. From the institution of the Church, though, the filmmaker only sees denial, obfuscation, and hypocrisy—especially when the institution has so publicly stated that its hierarchy would begin to act on these accusations.

Despite this, the film isn't angry. It condemns those who need to be condemned, for certain, but Ozon's purpose is simple: to allow the survivors their voices and, through a grouping of convincingly internalized performances and an ever-widening narrative, to compel us to hear. The silence has endured for far too long, and with endless compassion for the survivors and righteous indignation for the offenders, By the Grace of God shatters it.

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