Fourteen year-old Fortuna has been separated from her parents during the perilous journey from Africa to Europe and now waits In a refugee centre, which has been set up within a monastery in the Swiss mountains. The handful of monks who live, work and worship there try to come to terms with the intrusion of this human tragedy into their secluded lives. Fortuna, increasingly isolated and unhappy, is assumed by the carers at the centre to be upset by her parents’ absence and her uncertain future. In fact, her predicament is even more serious…

Shot in black and white, with plenty of shallow-focus close-ups? Check. Employing the old 4:3 screen ratio? Check. Wordless shots of a beautiful but barren landscape? Check. Action-free conversations about profound philosophical questions? Long sequences of mundane activity? Stubbornly passive protagonist? Check, check and check. As if to underline the connection with Bressonian transcendentalism, there’s even a donkey. FORTUNA is so stuffed with signifiers of serious intent that the viewer may be forgiven for thinking that the director Germinal Roaux has overplayed his hand. Nonetheless, the radical simplicity of Roaux’s approach, along with the sheer beauty of so much of the film, suggest that his gamble – if that’s what it was – has paid off handsomely.

The piety and goodness of the monks, which are depicted with the same rapt sincerity as in Xavier Beauvois’ 2010 film OF GODS AND MEN, are matched by Fortuna’s own naive Christian faith, perhaps implying that they have more in common with each other than with the refuge centre’s wearily pragmatic administrator and the rest of the outside world. However, this idea remains unresolved, in keeping with a film whose virtues are mainly suggestive rather than explicit. In particular, the film employs a gracefully fluid chronology which makes it seem possible that much of the narrative, including some particularly well-realised dream sequences, is taking place inside Fortuna’s head…

See it at the Cambridge Film Festival at the Picturehouse on 26th Oct at 13.30 and Emma College on 27th Oct at 16.15.