A wonderful script (Dimitry Sobolev) for "a Fool for Christ" tale. With some fascinating tidbits--the main actor was a rock musician who became a Russian Orthodox monk and lives on a distant island in real life, just as the fictional monk in the film. The director of the film Pavel Lungin says the lead actor Petr Mamonov played himself. The actor apparently received a blessing from his confessor for playing the fictional monk. The Patriarch of Moscow Alexei II praised it for its profound depiction of faith and monastic life. Another amazing tidbit--the film won the best spiritual film award in 2008 at the Fajr film festival in Iran, a fervent Islamic country. The negative factor: the highly improbable visit of a Russian Admiral returning to the fictional island three decades later with a sick daughter for a cure by the monk he does not easily recognize. The film was chosen as the closing film for the 2006 Venice film festival.
Review of The Island
