In another strong year for the international film category, Corpus Christi deserves its spot as a nominee. It's a slow burn film with religion and moral ambiguity at its heart, and even if the climax wasn't quite everything I was hoping for, the relentless tension up to that point was more than enough to make it a good movie. Daniel, the protagonist, is the engine for all the moral searching central to the movie. He wants to be a priest, but can't be one as an ex-convict, so he pretends to be someone else making it up as he goes along. He quickly realizes that he has a talent for it and that he has the ability to really affect people's lives. The whole time, there's the uneasy tension that this can't last, which ratchets up to full throttle when an old juvie friend comes by blackmailing him. While Daniel knows his days in the happy and impactful life he's been living are numbered, he still throws himself fully into the challenges of the town, particularly blame for a tragedy that left 7 people dead. The ending was harder for me to interpret - maybe the goal was to show that you can't run away from things forever, and no matter how much good you're doing those old ghosts will come back and you'll end up back where you started? The circularity of the plot, despite the spiritual experience Daniel has, is clear. Regardless, it's very well shot and developed as a story, and Bielenia is great as the lead.