By the Grace of God

By taking on the subject of pedophilia in the church, one of France’s best contemporary directors breaks through yet another taboo. In By the Grace of God,an award winner at the Berlinale, François Ozon focuses on the scandal involving the cardinal of Lyons, Bernard Preynat. Although the film tells a story that made plenty of headlines, it is very different from the stories that appeared in French newspapers, probably because Ozon is more interested in the victims—people who, years later, have found the courage to speak out about their trauma and to demand punishment for the guilty parties—than the demonic figure who abused them. Thanks to the determination and passion of the protagonists in their fight against a powerful opponent, By the Grace of Godhas earned comparisons to the Oscar-winning Spotlight; although Ozon’s film has comparable firepower, it is much more ambitious—both in its length (almost 140 minutes, which passes in the blink of an eye) and its surprising narrative experiments straight out of the works of Hitchcock or Antonioni.