Product: The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Region 2) (1999)
Rating: 1.0
The Amphetamine Maid
Not only is Joan of Arc presented as a nut in this film, she's clearly tripping on speed: Jumping out of her skin, screaming her head off and delivering banal lines with halting, eye-bugging intensity.It's hard to believe that even the most religiously medieval French soldier would give this loon the time of day, let alone follow her into battle.Mon Dieu! Run awaaaaaayy. . .But I'll say this for the director, he's consistent. It's fast paced all the way through, what with boulders a la 'Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom ' getting hurled at the troops along with other JamesBondian gizmos making for cool technogore.Which, alongside Joan's motivation in this script ( Her sister's been raped by the posse of --er I mean the Brits) turns it all into an enjoyable comic book Western revengefest. It's 'The Quick and the Dead' minus gunslingers, set in 1429. Plus the scenes of her schizoid 'visions' are gorgeously photographed.But as far as the real Joan of Arc, the only major historical figure whose life and thought has come down to us through sworn court testimony---Oh well, in the first place she's had writers of genius like Shaw and Twain to balance this dramatization, and in the second place, as long as we're making films about protagonists who hear voices, wild battle scenes and trials for heresy it could have been much worse.How about: " Socrates, Herald of Hades! "(sigh)