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Paradise: Faith(Paradies: Glaube)

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Austria, Germany, France · 2012
1h 53m
Director Ulrich Seidl
Starring Maria Hofstätter, Nabil Saleh, Natalya Baranova, Rene Rupnik
Genre Drama

Second film in Ulrich Seidl's Paradise trilogy. A devout Catholic woman practices her religion at home and in the local community, descending into violent self-punishment as part of her faith. But she is unprepared for the reappearance of her estranged husband, who is a Muslim.

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What are critics saying?

60

Empire by

Part two of Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise trilogy is a stark, morally complex study of blind belief, lightened by black laughs and Seidl’s static, deadpan compositions.

60

Time Out by David Fear

It’s hard to say if Faith works better as part of a whole instead of a triptych’s single panel until the trilogy is complete, but the unconverted may find this too much of a cross to bear.

38

Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene

A shallow film that leaves us knowing exactly what we're seeing, and able to predict what the characters will say to each other in the mostly uninspired and overtly familiar dialogue.

80

Variety by Leslie Felperin

The constant juxtaposition of scenes showing the dark and light aspects of the characters endows the pic with a juicy moral complexity that will stimulate post-screening debates.

80

Village Voice by Michael Atkinson

Though we're never allowed a close-up, Hofstätter's performance comes off as an unselfconscious tour de force, painfully real and culturally lost.

58

The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo

A powerful final scene reveals that Seidl knew exactly where he was going. But the journey is stultifyingly static, repeating the same basic information over and over with only negligible variations.

60

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

There are plenty of Seidl's signature grotesques, extended uncomfortable scenes and hardcore imagery owing something to Lucian Freud and Diane Arbus. But perhaps for the first time there is also a hint of ordinary human heartbreak.

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