Ostrov (The Island)
Director: Pavel Lungin
Arts and Faith Top 100: #77
The Island is a sublime example of why the Arts and Faith top 100 list is so valuable. The film tells a story about Father Anatoly, a monk in communist Russia who baffles his fellow ascetics with his pranks and nonsensical speech, but attracts visitors from far away who seek healings and exorcisms for their loved ones.
The film opens in 1942, as we watch a German destroyer crew find a couple of Russian soldiers in hiding. Rather than just kill the both of them, one of the Russians is forced to fire his weapon on the other one. The surviving Russian becomes Father Anatoly, a monk, and the story picks up with him in 1976, living as a hermit in a small Orthodox community.
Anatoly becomes the holy fool, e.g. Zosima in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. He pulls pranks on his fellow monks, speaks in riddles, and harasses the visitors who come to him. His exploits have apparently become famous, such that he frequently receives visitors who bring family members suffering from physical and mental maladies. Perhaps against his wishes, Anatony does in fact have a healing hand.
The sin of Anatoly's from his warrior days leaves him in deep need for forgiveness. Here is where the film can impact even the most casual viewer who knows little or nothing about the history of monasticism and Russian Orthodoxy. How do we live with ourselves after we commit grievous sins? Most of us do not have the physical act of murder on our conscience, but we all carry around regrets and remorse for acts we have committed that have harmed others. When there is no opportunity to extend the olive branch of remorse to the hurt party, how do we receive the sacrament of forgiveness? Anatoly continues to live with the weight of that act on his conscience.
To what extent should we struggle with remorse over our sins? Martin Luther struggled with his iniquities, to the point that he hated to read about God's righteousness in the epistle of Romans. Luther's anxiety and despair led him to a new (renewed?) interpretation of God's grace in Paul's writings. Lutheranism was born out of this struggle with human nature. However, several generations later we have the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran who complained about the "cheap grace" of easily forgiven sins, such that he witnessed believers no longer struggling at all with their transgressions.
The Island does not attempt to answer the question that it prompted in my mind. Anatoly is a reminder that we are mortal, flawed creatures who worship a holy God. We both fall victim to "cheap grace", and yet we also carry around transgressions and guilt that will plague us for the rest of our lives. That is part of the complication of human nature. The Island is a reminder that forgiveness is possible, even in this life. Without the phenomenon of forgiveness, all of us is an "island" unto ourselves. But with forgiveness comes the community that shows us the love of God that we crave and need. Even a hermit like Anatoly finds himself in need of the love that only comes from community.
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