Valeriu Andriuță makes authority troubling by taking its convictions seriously. We value the humanity he gives the Priest in Beyond the Hills, making contempt difficult without making the man's certainty any less alarming.
Fi1m perspective
In Beyond the Hills (2012), another person's distress does not necessarily make the Priest question what he believes. Valeriu Andriuță gives those beliefs enough weight that we cannot dismiss him as a convenient villain. We were unsettled by the persistence of his certainty in the face of that distress. The performance makes us consider how a decision can seem reasonable to the person making it and still cause alarm. He does not make the man easy to dislike.
His association with director Cristian Mungiu runs from early work including Occident (2002), in which he played Nae, through Beyond the Hills to Graduation (2016). Elsewhere, he played the Commander in Sergei Loznitsa's Donbass (2018). Priests and officials recur in his work, and the risk with such casting is that the position can do the acting. A title and a stern manner will get a performer some distance. Andriuță interests us when he makes the conviction behind the authority worth examining.
In Beyond the Hills, Mungiu's screenplay gives the monastery community the dignity of taking its own beliefs seriously. Andriuță and Dana Tapalagă, as the Mother superior, work within that approach: neither encourages us to settle into contempt. Their contribution matters because the film keeps its questions about faith close to the two women at its centre. The supporting performances make the people around those women harder to write off. The middle section repeats itself, but that is a reservation about the film's progress, not a reason to wish for a simpler Priest.
We would be cautious about turning this strength into a claim that every severe part suits him. Repeated casting as authority figures can become predictable, however carefully each person is played. What we value here is his willingness to let the Priest believe himself justified, without signalling that the actor knows better. It asks more of us than a performance that advertises disapproval from the start. Begin with Beyond the Hills, if a patient, painful drama is what the evening can accommodate.
Biography
Valeriu Andriuță is a Romanian-Moldovan actor, director and screenwriter. He was born on 22 December 1967 in Lazovsk, then part of the USSR (now in Moldova). He graduated with a BA in acting from the Shota Rustaveli Theater and Film Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1992, and later studied stage directing at the National University of Theater and Cinematographic Arts in Bucharest.
Andriuță is known for roles in films directed by Cristian Mungiu, including Nae in Occident (2002) and the Priest in Beyond the Hills (2012). He has also appeared in Graduation (2016) as Suspect No 4, Donbass (2018), A Gentle Creature (2017) and The Father Who Moves Mountains (2021). He directs short films, including Chers Amis (2017) and Salix Caprea (2018), for which he has received awards for direction and screenplay.
