Compositions that will never leave you and emotions that will haunt me each viewing of the film

Rating: Null/10 (28 October 2011)

I would like to note that I advocated Carl Theodor Dreyer way before I was seated in front of this film, which became to most critics, his crowning moment. He took cinema into sacrilegious areas and instilled ideas about the existence of a deity. These theocentric and glorious disembowelling of the truth of this and the truth of death are amongst a subject matter, which was picked up by Goddard, Bergman and Allen. It's good to know that it has been done, but Dreyer was ahead of this in condensing philosophical things to his films, such as this film, Vampyr and Ordet. What makes him more potent then Bergman (given that Bergman is a genius and undeniably knew how to make a film that tried to thwart any believe that he wanted to debunk. Powerful example of this is found in "Winter Light" (1963)), but let's just say Bergman tried a film that represented symbols rather than words. In Prison (1949), a film in which he dismissed as terrible, he uses visual ideas in quite crude ways. It's an anticlerical film in a way and it showed his passion in silent cinema, until he formalised his own approach head on. But he took ideas and brought them into nuanced complexity. Dreyer wanted to actually bring forth something as a standalone work and he never really wanted his opinion to be influenced into his films. I even think Bergman liked Dreyer; his works seemed to be influenced by him. Dreyer was a Danish director; he was one of the first masters of abstract images. It's bizarre to see overtly on his IMDb credits that his first film was "The President" made in 1919, even though it tackled similar ideas, it's unlike anything that his style encompasses. I discovered him by a feature that I fell in love with called "Vampyr" 1932; its mysticism, demythologising of the vampire and technological effects that set the way we move in Allan Grey's ventures, where he enters a world that we shouldn't have entered and he shouldn't have either is amazing and the demonology of the film is in my opinion really overlooked. It exploits death in such a way especially how Leone died by a ghost we don't see (similar to "Blood of a Poet" when Jean's character peaks through a painting to see a cowboy shooting a gun – the same nervous effect). The film is expressionistic, dominantly white and metaphorically about us as thinatophiles and in doing this, reifying legendary figures. When the Vampires Accomplice gets killed, the ending is perfect because it's a time glass and it symbolises the memento mori and again we want to see this guy die because he wants to see others die as well. And then it segues into the forest where Allan and the affected of woman go off into the sun, the first mammoth bit of life in the condition of the films environment. Enticed by the shadows of figures and interiors of cavernous places, it's no doubt a fantastic film and heavily overlooked. The power is understated, but gloriously executed. I had been excited about "Passion" for a long time; "The President" (1919), "Mikhail" (1924) and "Master of House" (1925) are the only silent films I was aware of that he made. I then dabbled into film documentaries (one of which was the episodic "Story of Film" by Mark Cousins) and I found out more about the realist film maker and this made me even more serious about getting it. It was a criterion edition I purchased and it came through last week. With those few films mentioned into consideration, Dreyer makes a foray into detailing Joan's story – The accuracy is diminished slightly, ultimately to accommodate the drama of the story, and instead Dreyer employs Marinee Falcolnetti as Jeanne D'arc and it's the most beautifully lit face in all of pantomime in cinema. There are a lot more that are probably better actors during that era, but it's an unequalled accomplishment to give such a resonance, simply with close ups (and it looks nearly like macro photography and this was during a time where these innovations weren't even around). I love seeing her response for salvation of soul, as if the apotheosis is manifestos. I don't believe anything that is said by Joan, but taking her impassioned words in this film, which are to me probably false and seeing how she goes against them, shows us the rigour of that terrible system.
The film interlinks objects with emotions and takes different accounts very serious. I nearly cried in the first half of it and as it culminated calamitously. Dreyer used a panning shot very infrequently when he showed the judges and there's one scene where the camera pans right down one of their faces and then it cuts to Jeanne in a state of despair about where she leaned the prayer from. The judges don't hate her, but rather that they hate her mendacity and hubris ways, which make them hypocritical just because she wants to help people. Two Judges plea that she is a saint and didn't stem from the Devil, but from God. As if by envy of her accomplishments in helping people, they refuse to accept any verisimilitude of the trial. Trust me, the subtle moments of cinematography such as when the people come in with the weapons or when they're getting out the stake and the unbelievable part when they tell her that the King wrote a letter just to get her to put down a signature to death, hits the emotional side, not because it's playing for poignancy, but because of the woe of it So while probably not the most accurate version of the story (I have yet to see Demille's "Joan the Woman" and actually read up on it), this is a bravura film and is close to being the best Dreyer film I have seen.