Sagas of Suffering

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2003)

As Bernadette Soubirous' story proposed suffering as a kind of pre-requisite to spiritual salvation, so Jeanne d'Arc's saga suggests a similar prospect.

Whatever transpired in that remote village of Lourdes, public response widely bought into the concept of struggle as a requirement of genuine grace.
"La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" dramatizes what was historically one of period phenomena, that of stalwart spiritualists facing the flames rather than denounce their voices and visions.
So effective have been the various painters, playwrights and filmmakers in fashioning artworks based on these tales, that people have been profoundly influenced into tragically fallacious thinking.
Such concepts are best laid to rest, along with ancient relics and rituals. They are as tired and worn as medieval self-flagellation whips and shackles.
It's a new day of enlightenment, where we don't have to seek out gurus, soothsayers, or miracle healers. We also don't have to buy into past mythology, no matter how persuasively it may be presented.
As for myself, Mr. Dreyer's opus is one I personally shy away from with its dubiously downbeat message in the same manner that I avoid Gustav Dore's disfunctional lithographs of Dante's "Purgatorio."