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From the moment of your confirmation, “You become a warrior for Christ”. Sober start to a sombre film. With a mise en scène that echoes The Last Supper, Stations of the Cross opens with a priest exposing his mentees — amid which sits the protagonist, Maria — to the requirements dictated by the faith, and the dangers of modern life. This scene lays the theoretical and theological foundations for those to come, wherein Maria questions and adheres to the exigencies of the Church.

The film is composed of fourteen tableaux, each shot in one take, and introduced by an intertitle derived from a stage in Jesus’ life. The camera remains motionless for the duration of the scene, capturing a grey, sterile image — the pictorial equivalent of the characters’ purported asceticism. In fact, it is not until the ninth tableau that the camera moves at all, jarring the viewer and auguring ill.

Stations of the Cross is at all times subtle, while still effectively conveying its cautionary message. The film never permits itself to judge the presented material, inviting the viewers to do so at their own discretion. Cheap didacticism is carefully avoided thanks to multifarious characters, none of which are intrinsically “bad”. Not suited to those in search of facile narrative intrigue, Stations of the Cross remains above all conceptual to the highest degree.