The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Theodor Dreyer

My review won't be able to do justice to do this piece of art. The Passion of Joan of Arc is one of the biggest landmark in cinema's for it's lyrical use of the silent medium and for the use of its extensive close up's enhanced by a special film (back in those days). The film is especially unique because it just tells the Passion of Joan of Arc, a different approach in comparison to the Trial's of Joan of Arc type of films we are used to watching.

As a result the film follows the last few hours before Joan gives up her life for her beliefs and most importantly displays immense humanity in these few hours. We're always used to watchin an extremely brave and strong Joan of Arc and Dreyer gets his lead actress, Maria Falconetti to essay this poetic role with immense grace.

As the narrative progress' the more experimentation we can see with time and space itself. As the pace quickens to the expected end Joan displays a lot of human tendencies she's also much like Christ and his Passion has a doubts right up to the end. She is also reminded of her mother at just a few instances.

There's plenty of experimentation with Lights and Sounds - since it's a silent film the background score really makes this film much like stand out films like Lang's Metropolis. Definitely a very experimental film in terms of form and content.

My only grouse with the film was the sub titles were probably not the best since it was made in French, then after it was thought to be burned and surfaces years later it's been translated to Danish and then finally sigh - comes into English.

Dreyer is simply remarkable and I will definitely try and find some more work of his, there's not a lot of films he made but this one really got me hooked onto his style. Watch this space for more on Dreyer!

Recommendation level: 5/5 - For a true international cinema fan this was a treat, but I am not really sure if people who watch films for entertainment will find this Artistic 20's piece any good. Oh this is also one of the bunch of films I have picked up recently on holiday and there's a LOT of quality cinema coming up in the next month or so! Not available in India and still I have an original copy! Yaay!