Product: The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Region 2) (1999)
Rating: 2.0
Several great bowl-cuts, but a stinker of a film.
Well, you can be sure you'll be treated to your fair share of glorious Plantagenet hairdos if you rent this DVD. Almost everyone in the (fabulous) cast - even John Malkovich - has one. But alas the hair styles are about the only source of genuine cheer; almost everything else is a let-down.Malkovich had a peach of a part as the dastardly, conniving Dauphin, but played it amazingly straight, with nary a hint of the cheeky chappie the role was crying out for. What would Alan Rickman have made of it, I wonder. Or even Bruce Willis?He certainly wasn't helped by the dreadful pacing of the first half - it is a full hour before Joan has even got her army, let alone used it - the first 60 minutes being devoted to tedious back story leading to Joan's appearance in the Dauphin's court; by turns voyeuristic (was she a virgin? Spend ten minutes finding out!), gratuitously violent (the murder and necrophilia of Joan's sister), and just plain daft (recurring visions of a remarkably camp Jesus in a forest surrounded by wolves).The gratuitous violence is a serious blight on the film; the murder/rape scene was arguably relevant to the plot but still was depicted with more detail and relish than necessary, and the remainder of the film overflows with dogs, wolves and crows gobbling human carrion and more battlefield amputations and decapitations than probability would dictate. I'm sure these earned the film its 18 restriction when, fundamentally, it could have quite easily avoided them.But for all the above, I think the main problem with this film is Luc Besson himself. The early stages are laden with meaningless cliches - wolves streaming through the forest, girl running through meadows - and laboured imagery (crucifix, fire, dripping blood and a combination thereof) which get the film off to a bad start from which it never recovers.And thereafter Besson unwisely tries to have a bob each way. On one hand, he takes the historically faithful/dramatised documentary angle - this is really how it happened, you see - but on the other he plays the dreamy, psychedelic/quasi-spiritual card at the same time. Which isn't how it happened, at all.Most peculiar were Joan's visions of Jesus. It really isn't clear what we are meant to take from these: Did Joan really see visions of Jesus (as a boy and - heavily made up with eye-shadow, a beard and a toga - apparently as a member of Slade), or was she simply a paranoid schizophrenic, not in need of an army to march on the British so much as Professional Help?Besson doesn't answer this fundamental question, and the introduction of Dustin Hoffman at the end of the film, seemingly imbued with magical powers, really doesn't help. I still don't know what Hoffman was meant to do in the film or who he was. Was he Jesus? Was he Joan's conscience? Or just more evidence that she really was nuts? Or was HE the lead guitarist from Slade?All in all, hairdos aside, a pretty dissatisfying night in.