Peter Bradshaw 

The Monk – review

Vincent Cassel brings his unsmiling intensity to Matthew Lewis's classic errant 18th-century monk, writes Peter Bradshaw
  
  

The Monk
A tablespoon of 1970s art-porn … The Monk. Photograph: PR

Dominik Moll is the German-born film-maker who created the elegant noir suspense movies Lemming (2005) and Harry, He's Here to Help (2000) – now he has adapted The Monk, by Matthew Lewis, the classic English gothic novel of the 18th century. It stars Vincent Cassel as Friar Ambrosio, a charismatic monk tempted by Satan and the lures of the flesh. With an exclamatory orchestral score by Alberto Iglesias, this feverishly intense movie has a tablespoon of 1970s art-porn; the work of Walerian Borowczyk comes to mind, and Moll could well be a fan of The Omen. Cassel brings to the leading role his accustomed unsmiling intensity, as he comes to terms with the arrival of a strange new monk who wears an eerie face mask after being horribly disfigured in a fire. It is not a story of great depth or passion, but there are intriguing and unsettling moments on its well-crafted surface.

 

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