Beautifully photographed in austere but nimble long takes that pierce the daily goings-on of the monastery, Beyond the Hills is something of a revelation to me. It locates its story in a community of women by focusing on the fraught relationship between its lead pair: Voichita, who has fled the implied sexual exploitation and abuse of her orphan upbringing by devoting herself entirely to god; and Alina, who is desperately in love with Voichita after their shared childhoods as part sisters, part support systems, part (again, implied) lovers.
