A dermatologist's delight . . .

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2013)

. . . as director Carl Dreyer devotes almost the entire 82-minute running time of his THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC to extreme facial close-ups. Melle (or Maria) Falconetti as Joan cries a literal bucket of tears here, but that's not the headline. Though SHE is the one eventually convicted and burned as a "witch," her JUDGES THEMSELVES sport every shape and style of mole, wart, and wattle known to mankind, most of them in photogenic extra-large sizes! While Joan's suffering at the stake seems much more prolonged here in 1928 than in most subsequent film versions of her story (and the villagers' post-burning storming of the castle seems like something more suited to IVANHOE), Mr. Dreyer probably thought this was the only way to show how her earthly body could be purified after weeks of close exposure to such odious, Pustulent, venal, prevaricating, corpulent, chauvinistic, hell-bent air polluters at her show trial. One has to wonder if make-up artists were this GOOD in the 1920s, or--as a REAL vampire was found to star in NOSFERATU--did Mr. Dreyer dig up direct descendants of Inquisitors? Probably you need to be a dermatologist to answer this question.