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"The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc" | page 1, 2, 3
In a superbly articulate piece in Sight and Sound about Rivette's latest film,
"Secret Defense," critic Jonathan Romney describes a sequence that
follows Sandrine Bonnaire as she takes a train to another city to kill a
man by commenting, "Just watching her in transit we feel the weight of
everything she experiences." He could be talking about Bonnaire's Jeanne. Rivette's focus on specifics, his decision to stick closely to the
historical record and the constraints imposed on him by making a film of
this scale with a minuscule budget all combine to give "Jeanne la Pucelle"
an irreducible actuality. Rivette's film feels as if we are seeing
something that actually happened, less "history" than events that occurred
in the course of real lives. Shooting (I assume) on location in actual castles and cathedrals, and in parts of the French countryside that,
500 years later, remain unspoiled enough to pass for the 15th
century, Rivette pares the film down to essentials. The effect is simple,
unadorned, at times even static (particularly when Rivette, usually during
scenes at the royal court, arranges his actors in stage-like tableaux). Finally, the effect is like reading the description Joan gave of her life
at her trial ("Unique among the world's biographies," Mark Twain said,
because it is "the only one which comes to us from the witness stand.")
What moves you is that something so simple and plain could add up to
something so profound. Rivette has no time for the folderol that clutters
up the Besson film: The way he loads each scene with period costuming,
weaponry or decoration; the disastrous idiocy of attempting to film Joan's
visions as if they were LSD trips (how do you film a vision sent by
God?). Rivette allows nothing to get in the way of the events themselves,
and his bare-bones approach works wonders. That Jeanne's army seems to
consist of only 20 or so men really does make her victories seem like a
miracle. Bonnaire styles her acting to suit Rivette's approach. With her
hard, sullen little face, she has sometimes seemed inexpressive, and it
would be easy to make that mistake here. There's no charm, no charisma in
her Jeanne. But charm and charisma would be absolutely extraneous to a
young peasant girl who believes she has been charged by God and must
convince men far more powerful than she is to believe it, too.
Bonnaire's extraordinarily disciplined performance is motivated by the
force of Jeanne's contained determination. And because she never loses her
conviction that she has been chosen to save France, the contrasting moments
stand out in stark relief. Bonnaire conveys a radiant gratitude when she
drops to her knees before Charles, moments after he has been crowned king,
and proclaims that God's will has been carried out. But her best moment may
be the one in which she comprehends fully what the cost of carrying out
God's will may be, opening her mouth in silent shock -- half pain, half
martyred ecstasy -- as she is wounded for the first time. "Jeanne le Pucelle" contains none of the sunny playfulness that
characterize Rivette's "Celine and Julie Go Boating" or "Haut/bas/fragile,"
his most accessible films. It may be too rarefied, even too cerebral a pleasure
to ever appeal to moviegoers unfamiliar with his style; Rivette may be
the least known great filmmaker outside France, though he doesn't even
attract large audiences there. But the film's resolute plainness honors
the spirit of its subject and allows for Joan's sanctity without becoming
hamstrung by reverence. At 70, Rivette still seems like one of the most
contemporary filmmakers working. "Each new work," writes Jonathan Romney,
"has the freshness and discomfort of a first-time director facing the same
problems of how to invent a cinematic fiction and see it through to a
finished (but always raw, unpolished) product." That's the description of a
filmmaker particularly suited to liberate history from the mustiness of
information and the aggrandizement of myth. Rivette's Jeanne is
flesh and blood before she's a saint. That's why her victory is a marvel,
and it's why her fate scorches us as well.
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About the writer Sound off Related Salon stories Killing "The Messenger" French director Luc Besson comes under fire for selling out France's hallowed icon, Joan of Arc, to Hollywood. Element of stupidity In the future according to "The Fifth Element," the Supreme Being is a supermodel, absolute evil is a big ball of molten lava -- and the fate of the universe hangs in the balance.
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