When Film Becomes Transcendental Art.

Rating: 10/10 (2 August 2005)

It so often happens that some films take the long way to achieve their status of classics and worthy of being studied, frame by frame, by movie lovers who believe in the power of raw performance and skilled direction of cameras to depict a powerful visual set of images. When one sees films like VERTIGO which barely registered with movie-going audiences at the time of their release but after restoration went on to become one of the best films of the last century, it only shows that film, as an art, doesn't need a golden statuette to have merit, and when it's done exceptionally well, it can be seen in any context and any time period beyond its release date and will still hold its audience in awe.
Carl Theodore Dryer, to me, created what I believe is, alongside Orson Welles' CITIZEN KANE, the most powerful black and white film in cinema history. It would be difficult indeed to say which one is better since both films are landmark in their own cinematic styles and have been dissected frame by frame. Dryer's film has been criticized for either being a pretty collection of still images or being pure visual power: I choose the latter, because in watching THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, I felt not only the extremely uncomfortable intimacy between Joan and her tormentors, but her sublime emotions as they pass through her face as she is mocked, cross-examined, humiliated, and burned at the cross. There is an unearthly beauty in Falconetti's face as she goes through the ringer of emotions not in the overacting style typical of the Twenties but in a completely modern way, as if she were living a reality so far removed from the corrupted priests who bash and condemn her, and her reality would therefore be dangerous to their own beliefs.
And what a stroke of genius, I think, to have the lighting on her face be soft, gentle, in contrast to her detractors who are always lit in harsh light which exacerbates their ugliness and betrays their "devotion" to God as mere politics. Dryer's style of cutting from one actor to the other is also different, and makes this film a surrealist experience, an unsettling, abstract tour through transcendental suffering. There are no defining shots which tell us where exactly is the story taking place (although we don't need to know after reading the transcripts), but we never are allowed as viewers a moment of rest from this suffocating intimacy between Joan and her inquisitors. Some bizarre shots and camera angles give the ending an even more disturbing and horrifying element of what we perceive as a gross injustice to what was a person who held her own beliefs and did not need the Church to sustain it.
Falconetti never did a film before this one and never returned to film acting after this. I have not read much about her, except that she lived in Argentina until her death in 1946. I sometimes wonder why she didn't act again (although she was known to be an accomplished theatre actress more known for comedies than drama) but those are the mysteries of actors who don't have the star ego and only make a few films. She came, only did this masterful performance, and left just as suddenly, and those who re-discovered this film and restored it to its full quality have to be commended for allowing us, who have come almost 80 years later, to experience the power of subtle acting.