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Joan of ArcRating:
Release Date: 20 August, 2002 Retail Price: $9.98 OUR Price: $8.99 You SAVE: $0.99! Cast: Complete Cast (16 total) |
Joan of Arc Reviews
French garbage
This review may sound pretentious and ignorant, but in truth I'm a big fan of British history, so bear with me!
Even as a film itself, it's surreal, and I don't like the acting. But as with any historical film that includes the British, they're made out to be the absolute bad guys! Sure we were forging an empire within France (i.e. The Hundred Years War), but rapists and murdering pillagers!? Never!
Historically accurate, full of British sentiment, and down-right weird. Avoid this film today, folks!
Valiant try, but mediocre drama and history
This 1999 TV-movie (frequently abridged; be sure to get the full-length 140-minute DVD or double-VHS tape set)has its moments and looks positively brilliant compared to Milla's "The MESSenger," but on the whole tastes like an open can of house-brand soda left out all night -- flat, tinny, and full of artificial ingredients.
The screenplay takes excessive historical liberties and is generally underdeveloped and a tad unfocused. The direction is colorless and seems rushed, the battle scenes in particular looking confused, unrealistic, and cliched. (Can we PLEASE declare a moratorium on slow-motion combat photography and people screaming "NOOOOOOooooOOO!!!") There is little passion in the ebb and flow of the story arc and attention tends to wander, even in the shortened version.
It is regrettable that Joan's heavily fictionalized conflicts with her father are given so much screentime at the expense of genuine historical events. (I suspect the producers were aiming for a "Domremy 90210" vibe to bring in the teen set.) The siege of Orleans is over almost before it begins. We see very little of Joan the war leader, and this is a great shame, seeing as how this was the crux of her mission. It is hard to imagine what a raw newcomer to Joan's life must think after seeing this production, because a complete portrait was never revealed, only glimpses. This isn't Leelee Sobieski's fault entirely, although her performance was perhaps a bit underplayed and monotonal. I am more inclined to blame the director and script, neither of which gave her much to work with beyond lazy melodrama. Sobieski brings a youthfulness to the role that is refreshing and convincing, and she makes an appealing and sympathetic Jeanne. I appreciate her vulnerability, but she doesn't display enough steel, compared to the Joan of hiustory, who could be very impetuous and willful. Why is Joan so reluctant to be seen as the "maid of Lorraine"? This is contrary to her own sense of mission as received from her Voices. The film seems to use them as some sort of magic power -- few other characters demonstrate much religious feeling or motivation, certainly not enough for a film in this setting.
Some of the more specific historical quibbles: the real Joan had a fairly well-defined set of supporting characetrs, but we don't see much of them in this film. Joan's squire and page are dropped in favor of Olympia Dukakis' nun sidekick, which is silly. La Hire, mysteriously tamed by an 18-year old peasant girl, is the only notable French commander we see, and he is a blank rather than the foul-mouthed Gascon veteran he really was. The Dauphin is unconvincing (it would be hard to top Jose Ferrer's 1948 performance OR physical similarity). Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais, who presided over Joan's trial, did not enter her life until after her capture, and his role as a scheming court minister is inaccurate. There has been a theory put forward in recent years that Joan was raped before her execution but this is far from proven, and its inclusion in the movie is gratuitously mean and manipulative. Finally, Joan was actually captured in battle benath the walls of Compiegne (possible betrayed from within the city; the gates were shut against her). She had to be dragged from her horse. Although she had a vision of her eventual capture, she did not court it, and she certainly did not sit in the middle of her troop and let her enemies swoop in and carry her off unresisting like a sack of hamburgers. I kept expecting her brother to call out after the Burgundians, "hey, do you want fries with that?"
If you can't tell a simple and rousing tale like Joan of Arc's and retain your viewer's interest, you have failed Filmmaking 101. Stories don't come any more dramatic or pre-scripted. The rest is a simple matter of making the raw notes sing. This movie doesn't sing.
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