Dumont’s film is the only film you’re ever likely to see with a head-banging Joan of Arc. And accompanying nuns. This is a musical which effectively takes place in one location, which is the home and surrounding countryside of the young Joan of Arc. There’s a lot of bad singing and some songs which in other circumstances might be deemed less than convincing. These songs tend to be overblown and melodramatic, more Bonnie Tyler than Monteverdi. The songs are accompanied by amateurish dance sequences, featuring young Joan in two guises, first as peasant girl, and later as the teenager who is on the point of departure for a rendezvous with her destiny. To say this is an unconventional piece of film-making would be an understatement. It’s more like performance art. Joan drifts around her countryside, singing songs about the brutality of the English, her struggle with God’s calling, and the need for the French to overcome their apathy and fight back. Her uncle is the worst rapper in history, who tries to dissuade her with his rhymes and unsurprisingly fails. There’s no dramatic tension (we know what Joan is eventually going to do), no dramatic development, scarcely any narrative. Most of the songs are about twice as long as they need to be. And yet, in spite of everything, it ends up being utterly engrossing and in its own unique fashion, completely sublime.
No comments:
Post a Comment