Watched: 30th May 2024
Rating: 5/5 stars
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This was one of the tensest eighty minutes of my life. We all know how the story of Joan of Arc ends, but Carl Theodor Dreyer embodies it with a pulsing, human pathos that lifts it out of the pages of history and reminds us that at the heart of it was a young girl who had only her belief in a loving God to keep her going, at the darkest of times. And what a performance in that role by Renée Jeanne Falconetti – every look, every close up of those tortured eyes and trembling lips is like a direct glimpse into Joan’s soul, the natural fear of the state in which she finds herself tempered by her devotion. Despite the silence, there is no lack of emotion. Instead, it enforces Dreyer’s direction to push through to the next level. The close-ups of human faces transformed by hate into something more like vicious gargoyles, the claustrophobia of Joan’s prison as her doom begins to wrap its hands around her throat… Dreyer’s use of lighting and space is commendable, and does a far better job at making your heart thump in your chest than plenty of modern dramas do. For its time, I can only imagine how visionary this film was, but nearly a century later and it has lost none of its sharpness.
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Originally posted on Letterboxd on 9th June 2024: https://boxd.it/6A09T7
Take a Luke 