Mass

The corrosive toxicity of unresolved grief is at the heart of Mass, a film so powerful in its ambition to achieve resolution through healing that the overall impact is both devastating and hopeful in equal measure.

The ensemble cast sees two sets of grieving parents trying to work through their anguish by listening, talking and understanding in the arranged safe space of a church vestibule. The process is painfully exhaustive, forcing the audience to hold its breath for the characters who are claustrophobically trapped in a communication loop which cannot be broken until the possibility of forgiveness is acknowledged.

The camera watches, but never invades, the process, keeping a sensitive distance from the impossibly difficult discourse between the four characters, who each, in turn, address a personal facet of their own loss. The sparse setting which focuses predominantly on a table and a crucifix adds an almost Beckettian atmosphere where the props are simultaneously symbolic and irrelevant. The characters ultimately move away from the table in the final throws of their discussion, removing the metaphorical barrier to their communication, whilst the ever-present God looms large in the simple, but somehow imposing crucifix.

A deeply necessary and important film.