shades in close-up

Rating: 10/10 (24 February 2019)

Giovanna is taken to the Inquisition court. Her close-up is worried and pious at the same time. Giovanna in the close-up begins to cry. Then while she claims to be sent by God and the English will be driven out of France, the close-up takes a lateral angle, more painful and sharp as a knife that hits the viewer's heart. The editing alternates impassive close-ups of the inquisitors and the juxtaposition of Giovanna's close-up with the close-up close-up of a guard, which appears zoomed in his terrible look in the car: this is particularly disruptive. The process continues and Giovanna's eyes are estranged as if she were looking at angels and saints for whose vision she is also accused. After the accusation of blasphemy continues to pray in ecstasy as "The ecstasy of Santa Cecilia" by Bernini. A friar thinks that Giovanna is a saint, but is taken away by the soldiers. Giovanna sees a cross in the shadow and feels comforted. She is not considered a daughter of God but a daughter of the devil and is sentenced to torture. Giovanna D 'Arco says that even if she dies she will not deny anything. The eyes are twisted by terror in front of the torture wheel and faint. Giovanna is taken to a bed where they are bleeding. Giovanna feels that she is about to die and asks to be buried in a consecrated area. Giovanna says it is not true that she was sent by the devil but that they were sent to make her suffer. In a close-up, Giovanna turns her head in this ascetic and suffering moment and a quick, alternate editing correlates her with close-ups and details of the inquisitors, like their mouth whose words depend Giovanna's life. Giovanna suffers the final sentence while an image of a worm coming out of a skull in the common grave contrasts with the intensity of her close-up. Giovanna embraces death and on the gallows says she accepts death with a good heart. Giovanna burns at the stake while devoted ladies cry in a series of close-ups. The crowd rebels against burning a saint and the soldiers attack the people, who flee in an alternation of close-ups, filming from the top of the crowd that escapes attacked by soldiers and the silhouette of Giovanna burning on the stake.