One of the year’s wildest and weirdest films is also the most intensely theological. Bruno Dumont’s musical about the young Joan of Arc features an eclectic score by Igorrr, but every lyric and line of dialogue is drawn from the writings of the French Catholic poet Charles Péguy. The drama centres on Joan’s profound unease regarding the suffering of humanity, especially war and the eternal damnation of souls. Fourteen centuries after Jesus redeemed the world, why is the world not more redeemed? The high point is a stunning 18-minute sequence at once sublime and at least bordering on ridiculous, as—in an exchange evocative of one of Joan’s heavenly visions—a nun named Madame Gervaise (inexplicably played by stone-faced twin sisters) offers a sublime, poetic theodicy affirming both the utter wretchedness of the world and the transcendent redemptive power of Christ’s atonement at work throughout the world. The jarringly anachronistic music ranges from electronica to Baroque themes to guitar-shredding thrash metal, but the sensibility of the lyrics is authentically medieval, given a liturgical feel by the gravity with which the sisters intone Péguy’s poetry, with its chant-like reliance on simplicity and repetition. Dumont has fun with the material but doesn’t deconstruct or debunk it, and the simple, energetic dancing becomes a kind of prayer.
– Steven D. Greydanus
- Directed by: Bruno Dumont
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- Release Date: 2018
- Running Time: 105
- Language: French
Arts & Faith Lists:
2018 Top 10 — #8