A Mirror Floating in Water

My name is Daniel. My mother named me after Daniel in the Bible. I was raised Catholic, but I became an atheist when I was about thirteen and at fifteen became an agnostic. I don't pretend to know much, or even anything about the nature of the universe, and respond skeptically to meta-narratives.

That said, there are times of in which I reach high levels of consciousness and joy. Whether this arises out of a high level of aesthetic appretiation or something else I don't know, and kind of don't care.

The Passion of Joan of Arc gave me one of those experiences. It generated a religious experience in me. I walked out knowing that I had seen one of the greatest films of my life. Never before have I seen a finer or more moving performance on screen than Renee Jeanne Falconetti's portrayal of the French saint who dressed up as a man and led the French army into battle before being captured and put to death.

This film depicts her last hours as she is put to trial by the Church. She says that she is sent by God to save France, the priests of all people laugh and mock her.

Filmed entirely in close-ups, with not a single establishing shot, director Carl T. Dreyer creates a total atmosphere of intense faces, claustraphobically juxtaposed together. The rage and mockery of the inquisiters, the sadistic expressions of the guards, and of course the confused and frightful face of Joan.

I have never before seen a silent film in which the camera is more alive (with the exception of some of Murnau's work). But Dreyer goes not use the almost exclusive use of close-ups or medium shots, or panning shots, as exercises in style. There is not one shot in here done for pure effect. I felt the intensity and emotion of the film and was drawn in by the camera, and was never in a detached, passive state.

Oh I must come back Falcoetti's performance. That strange legend of the screen. This was her first film, and after this, she never did another. Too emotionally drained by Dreyer's direction who demanded take after take to bring forth that unncanny emotional supression in her face. Dreyer may have been cruel, but he has undoubtably placed her as one of the immortal legends of the cinema.

What a film this is! It forcibly draws you in from the very first shots, bombarding you with human faces, that you are utterly focused and drawn in. At times I could not believe that I was watching an actress play Joan of Arc, I truly believed that I was watching a film document from the Middle Ages, it was so raw and real.

Most silent films, even the greatest ones have a cause and need to have overacting. It is truly a neccissity, for how else can an actor communicate what he/she is saying except through there face? There have been only two exceptions to my mind: Buster Keaton, who with one adjustment of his facial expression could express a whole range of emotions. The other is Falcoetti, who though at times has to possess that silent age unsublty in order to express the terror within her; but at almost all times is truly able to make us weep with just a movement of her eyes. Those eyes are her. They are like a reflection of her soul. Whatever it was that got Falcoetti to act that well, she is uncanny all the same.

What makes this film the greatest religion film I have ever seen along with Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly, is that there are no preachy moments in which we learn of Christ's teachings. We know them. We know what Christianity is too. But most of us never experience the phenomenon of faith, which is at the root of almost all religions.

In a sense, what it is that Joan believes could be easily changed to any religion with just the adjustment of some title cards. The point is not that she is a good Christian. But that her faith is a demonstration of a universal human phenomenon which transcends the mockery of reason. But again, as Dreyer demonstrates in the film, Joan's faith gives her no certainty of her knowledge of God, but instead gives her certainty of her duty towards God. Whether the ontological position of her faith is correct or not is irrelevant. Not only is it a teleological suspension of the ethical, as Kierkegaard would say, but a teleological suspencsion of the ontological. Joan represents absolute human faith beyond all human desire and selfishness.

But this does not make Joan a perfect saint. She too is human, and just as much as Scorsese's great The Last Temptation of Christ demonstrated, even the most godly of humans can be subject to doubt. And that is a powerful thing. If Christ too could for that moment, doubt himself upon crying out "God, why hast thou forsaken me?" then so can Joan, amongst all of the fear of being burnt at the stake. And while this message is not as powerful as it is in Scorsese's film, for Joan is not portrayed as a messiah, the way Christ is, it is no less a stunning film and performance, and a testament to the power of the human spirit. 10/10