An incredible cinematic experience where each scene contains the most painterly frame you will find in a film. Driven by a mesmerising performance from the lead actress and an incredible operatic score, this film gives you 80 minutes of pure theatrical cinema.
My seventh film in this Criterion Channel film challenge has brought me to my first silent film of the challenge. This is easily the oldest film I have ever seen, as 20s and 30s cinema is something I am not very familiar with. Two older films I have watched in the challenge were Seven Samurai and On the Waterfront, both of which are from the 1950s, and one thing that I had noticed was how theatrical the acting in those films is relative to today’s. Even in the 50s, you can still see the influence of live theatre acting in these on-screen performances. So I was expecting to see this style even more heightened in The Passion of Joan of Arc, especially as it is a silent film where the technical limitations required the actors to convey emotions in different and much more visually apparent ways. For the first 10 minutes of the film, Falconetti’s face is stuck in this entrancing state of shock where I don’t think she blinks once, while her eyes are about to pop out of her head. Thankfully, however, what transpires through the remainder of the film is an incredibly nuanced and emotional performance executed exclusively through her facial expressions. Such a raw and compelling performance; watching her conjure tears in extremely clear close-up shots drives home this mesmerising performance.
The cinematography in this film is absolutely stunning. A specific standout for me is after Joan takes holy communion, there is a shot of her praying with a cross in the background which feels like a painting you might see in the Louvre. This film has quite a short runtime relative to modern films, and it fully intends on making use of every single frame. The emphasis throughout the film on using close-up frames where the focus character is centre frame gives each actor a canvas to paint each emotion carefully. It is still shocking to me how clear and detailed these shots are. If a character so much as smirks, the shot is framed so as to clearly depict every fiber of their facial structure changing. The only gripe I do have with this is likely a consequence of both the runtime and perhaps technical limitations of the time, but there are periods where the repetitive shots can stagnate the visual intrigue. This is to say, I can see why these centre frame close-ups are used, but as a viewer it can on occasion lead to a monotonous viewing experience. The film opens with a dolly shot framing the room and its occupants, but then for much of the remainder of the film it forgoes more dynamic shots for a more static canvas to lay focus fully on the performers. I think it is ultimately the correct decision, but it’s just something I wanted to note. Finally, I wanted to mention the final scene where Joan is executed. An incredible scene, from the civilians fighting with the guard, the burning corpses, and the judges’ expressions of a kind of regret…..Such a brilliant moment.
One final thing I would like to note is I am curious how much of the film is lost to me as only an English speaker. The film delivers dialogue through black intertitles of white text cut in between frames, but a large portion of this film is characters speaking silently, which is then never actually shown in text form to the viewer. I just wonder if this had been an English film, would I have gotten more context from lip reading? Aside from the odd “oui” or “non,” I really had no idea what was going on conversationally a lot of the time. The film does a good job conveying the plot without this full context, but it’s just something I couldn’t shake….how much of this am I missing?
Overall, this is an incredible visual and audio experience. The story itself is not necessarily central to the enjoyment and is extremely minimal, but what this film does well, it does incredibly. I am giving this a four opposed to anything higher due to some decisions that didn’t play to my personal tastes (at times monotonous shots and lack of more text), but I can absolutely see why this is such a revered classic, and I highly suggest anyone who has the stomach for a silent movie from the 1920s to watch this one.
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