Raiders of the Lost Arc!

Rating: 3/10 (14 March 2011)

After years of hearing this film praised to the skies, I finally got to see this last night, thanks to our buddies at TCM.
For the benefit of you budding actors, the following is a blow-by-blow account of Maria Falconetti's portrayal of Joan of Arc, considered by many critics to be the greatest performance in the history of film:
Goes into Pop-My-Eyes-Out-of-My-Sockets Mode. Then cries.
Goes into I'm-Feeling-Sorry-for-Myself Mode. Then cries.
Goes into Lomotomized Zombie Mode. Then cries.
Goes into Bobbing Head Doll Mode. Then cries.
Repeats modes like a broken record. Then cries. A lot.
Joan of Arc was a female George Patton, someone who knew how to kick ass and take names. Falconetti's Joan is a blubbering wack job no one would follow into a pillow fight! Oddly, the only time Falconetti stops the blubbering wack job bit is when Joan is about to be burnt to a crisp.
The ending is a stupefying orgy of violence and bizarre camera angles. There is even a shot of a baby nursing, complete with full-frontal boobie! And the guy in the Mountie get-up lording over Joan's execution is a hoot! Where I can score some of that crack Carl Theodor Dreyer was smoking?