"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 Cecile 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."
Mother Vera presents a luminous black-and-white portrait of Vera, a nun in a remote Orthodox monastery in Belarus. The film uses long, still takes and careful framing, creating gallery-like visual compositions. Vera runs the convent stables and appears most herself with the horses. Her voiceover reveals a past marriage and heroin addiction; she entered the convent while her husband served a prison sentence. The convent houses many men who are former prisoners and addicts, and tense communal moments arise, including a meeting about expelling a man considered untouchable after being raped in prison. Vera's candid narration invites intimate access to her inner world.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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