Faith for survival

Rating: 8/10 (16 April 2020)

"The questions and answers between the judge and Jeanne are clearly recorded. After reading it, we will find a true Jeanne, a simple and humane young woman who removes her armor and died for the country.
This seemingly religious film has a very different narrative at the beginning. The whole passage does not involve the concept of God at all. Instead, it focuses on one word, that is, "human nature". Say it is the "belief" in human nature.
Over the past few hundred years, the image of Jeanne d'Or has long been mythical. She is a national hero of France and a goddess in the mouth of people. But it is ridiculous that such a Catholic saint with a strong religious meaning was due to political purposes. Burned to death for religious reasons. Such a fact makes people wonder: Is religion so ridiculous in some ways, and does God really exist? It can be said that at least in this film, the role of God is completely missing, and the close-up shots are very clear and belong to human faces. In the first half of the film, what we saw was just a face of a series of ridiculous interrogations, filled with desperate images of poor Jeanne, and the opposite, the laughter, ruthlessness and enthusiasm of most of the judges around indifferent. The atmosphere of extreme despair made people unable to catch a trace of God's existence. And halfway through the film, the three soldiers' ridicule and playfulness towards Jeanne reached its peak. The saint in the mouth of the people is being bullied like an ordinary prisoner of war, an ordinary woman at this moment. The crown she regarded as a sacred symbol was now reduced to a plaything above the sword in the hands of soldiers. When the only outside light on the floor was blocked by the shameless judges, all the divinities disappeared at this moment. In addition, in addition to a few distant shots of the perspective shots in the film, most of the angles of view come from the up shots. In other words, they belong to the angle of view that cannot belong to God.
However, when God seems to be gone, facing the persecution of power, is there no way as an individual, not so. "True salvation is not a victory after fighting, but a strength and peace of mind that can be found in suffering." So we saw in the second half of the film that the flinching, weak Jean was gone, replaced by a pair of stern eyes, an unyielding response, and a soul full of faith.
"I totally love and respect God with all my heart"
"He claimed that I was sent by the devil"
"That is not true"
"In order to make me suffer, the devil sent you"
"with you"
"And you"
This refusal, with all her power, sent out to the judges. It's just that this power does not come from the dead God, but from her own, from a person's inner, unbreakable faith. At this time, it is no longer important to whom the object of the belief is, and more importantly, this belief and the power it carries are burst out of a person and the heart of the person after the object has long been destroyed.
Although Joan of Arc had been shaken in the face of the upcoming fire punishment, it was the saint and the faith that never burned down in the fire. The director then expressed the scene that the French people were called by Jeanne d'Arc and immediately began to fight the soldiers, simply visualizing this power.
Since the two industrial revolutions, mankind has shouted the slogan of God 's death against the background of rapid technological advancement, but with it comes the heavy fall of souls from generation to generation, and the human spirit seems to remain after God 's departure A huge gap was added, and then a series of things that filled this gap added greed and sin that were left after the rapid development of many material civilizations. Maybe God is indeed dead, or not, but what mankind really lacks at this moment is not just an unknowable unknown force, but more importantly the faith, or rather, the faith itself.
Finally, the status of this film in film history is also commendable. Although the use of a large number of close-up shots is a reflection of the director's personal style, but the win is to win in the movie itself and the theme is very suitable. This film with almost no plot focuses more on the characterization of the characters, and the close-up shot becomes the optimal solution to achieve this goal under this condition. In addition, there is a very important point, the film was filmed in 1928, at this time, the sound film has just been born a year has not yet been popular. Instead of relying on the dialogue presented by the sound, the audience's attention is completely placed on the picture itself. The superb performance of the characters + the use of close-up shots + the clear-cut editing (the front and back contrast or the corresponding combination of pictures are used in the film many times The rendering of emotions) + the background music of the piano music constitutes the expression effect of the history of this vertical shadow. I have to say that this is really an art that belongs only to the silent era. The film fully embodies the unique charm of the film as a "dumb art" and truly achieves the so-called "silent wins with sound" effect.
"When the flame rises to the sky, it engulfs Jeanne's soul, Jeanne's heart has become the heart of France, Jeanne will be remembered and cherished by the French people forever."