Product: The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Region 2) (1999)
Rating: 2.0
No luck for Luc
If two great film artists, Carl-Theodore Dreyer and Robert Bresson, saw fit to restrict their talents to Joan of Arc's "passion" and "trial," then what on earth Luc Bresson thought he could do with her whole story is sheer megalomania. An action film director, he simply hasn't the skill to capture one of history's greatest enigmas on film - even with a large budget and an international cast. And he is clearly besotted with Milla Jovovich - else why would he cast her in The Fifth Element as 'the perfect human?' She is so out of her depth in this role that she's embarrassing to watch - turning poor Joan into a complete neurotic. The film suggests that the real puzzle of history is not that Joan of Arc led a French army into battle - and won - but that the Dauphin and his ministers actually permitted this apparent nut case to do so. She obviously hadn't the imagination - neither did Besson - to look deeply into this young woman's soul and find something authentic - like a 15th-century peasant girl made so ecstatic by her visions and voices (made ridiculous in the movie) that she convinced enough of her countrymen that she was sent to liberate them. I can think of maybe two or three living actresses who could pull it off, but they're far too old to play a 19-year-old. Viewers should purchase the newly restored and gloriously remastered Passion of Joan of Arc to get glimpses of what art can do with the enigma of Joan.