The opening sequence is extraordinary: a nun drops to the floor in devotion, hidden under the swathes of black habit puddling across the stone floor. There is more of this to come in photographer Alys Tomlinson and film-maker Cécile Embleton’s beautiful black and white documentary. It is film of stillness, long, long takes and careful framing – and would look at home playing on the walls of an art gallery. But Mother Vera, with its intense, luminous portrait of a woman, is not an austere art film.
Her name is Vera, a nun in a remote Orthodox monastery in Belarus; you could cast her as Joan of Arc, with her beautiful fierce face. The setting itself might be medieval, but then out steps Vera into a bitingly cold wintry day, wearing a floor-length Puffa. She runs the convent stables, and seems to be most herself with the horses. On the voiceover Vera explains that before becoming a nun she was married, and a heroin addict. She came to the convent for a year while her husband went to prison. “I didn’t want to be a nun.” To say any more would give too much away.
The convent itself is fascinating, home to at least a hundred men who seem to all be ex-prisoners and addicts. At points it feels like you’re watching drama. There’s an uncomfortably tense scene when a meeting is called to discuss expelling a man for having “downcast” status – he’s an untouchable because he was raped in prison. The priest chairing the meeting (channelling a bit of Jesus-overturning-tables-in-the-temple rage) answers roughly that we are equal in God’s eyes.
Mostly though, we are with Vera. For long stretches the film is wordless and requires a commitment of attention. But Vera herself is an intense, powerful character, speaking with ruthless honesty on the voiceover; rather than being passively observed by the film-makers, she invites us in to her inner world. It’s riveting.
Mother Vera is in UK and Irish cinemas from 29 August.