Tearing and cathartic report about every distortions in faith.

Rating: 10/10 (25 August 2005)

The Tragedy is being consummated. The Passion is reaching its apex. "You are burning a Saint!", this is the scream of anguish of the people, witness of this poignant event, very deeply moved by the excruciating agony of Joan of Arc, flame beyond the flame. Very short hair, fine features in spite of her social condition of uncultured peasant, deep and large eyes burning of the same unquenchable fire bound to put an end to her life: this is our heroine, whose beauty is emphasized at once by her great faith in the infinite mercy of God.
She never staggers under the heavy burden of her charge in the presence of her inquisitors, unreal and monstrous entities whose hardheartedness shows up on their grotesque features and on their unnatural animal-like attitude, judging by their perverse faces distorted by extremely short focal length lenses. They look like personified devilish entities engaged in a cat-and-mouse game, their ugliness accentuated by a series of uncommon close-ups contrasting with Joan's wonderful face that shows the extreme dramaticity of her situation instead, compelled to endure her pain with great courage and to bear the heavy weight of her cross with resignation, without losing her steady disposition of soul, wanting to go through with her rigidity of principles at the cost of her life.
Satanic grimaces, devilish sneers, derisive laughters and spittle emphasize the ineluctable course of this absurd justice system while the vision of her holocaust hovers above the head of the sacrifical victim, so fragile, so vulnerable when fighting in defense of her behavior, so unheard when holding her own opinion, so unprotected when pleading her cause. She objects strenuously to everything they say because faith leads people to do things they never would have imagined themselves capable of, but her passionate words flow away like feeble whispers in a windy day, while her enchanting eyes scan an invisible sky, looking for something beyond her human strength, beyond every possibilities of the common mortals, maybe a divine sign from above, even if there's no question about her unshakable devotion to God, because "God knows where He bring us", she thinks, "but we are able to know the road to Him only when we reach the end of it." Every sequences are included in the above described oppressive scenario whose hypnotic suggestion expressionist style reminds us of the universal sense of pain ready to penetrate deeply into the substrate of our Christian and human consciences, in the inmost recesses of the soul, sharing our hidden emotions awakened by the vision of a defenseless face appealing for mercy in vain, without never losing her dignity.
Joan, of Arc, splendidly played by Renée Falconetti in this "PASSION", might be considered the symbol of the eternal suffering of human beings, adorned with an aureole of beauty and holiness, set on a supreme pedestal, higher and higher than every other female characters of the history of cinema, namely the ideal heroin per antonomasia especially thanks to the heart-rending final purification, moving and endless journey around the deep black of human soul, around the meanders of a faith itinerary stranded for ages on the sand-banks of a devastating fanatic pragmatism. Tearing and cathartic report about every distortions in faith.