Paradise: Faith

Austrian writer-director Ulrich Seidl turns his attentions to religion for the second of his disconcerting trio of movies. The central female figure this time is the sister of Teresa, the main protagonist and sex tourist from Paradise: Love. In contrast to her sibling's more earthly pursuits, the paradise Anna Maria seeks is a wholly Catholic Austria; and so she embarks upon door-to-door missionary excursions in Vienna when she's not working as a radiographer. But there's a darker side to Anna Maria and her devotion to Jesus: she's shown to bloodily scourge herself in front of an image of Christ and seek other forms of penance. And then there's her husband: Nabil. He turns up suddenly, halfway through the movie. He's Egyptian, paraplegic and Muslim, and it's clear they haven't seen each other for quite a while, and that Anna Maria has changed radically since they were last together - Nabil simply can't fathom her shift to fundamentalism. In his trademark fashion, Seidl puts both his actors and the audience through extended, disquieting moments as he probes, in a detached, non-judgemental manner, exactly what it is that makes Anna Maria tick. In German and Arabic, with English subtitles.