And the eyes certainly have it in this edition of Hidden Flick, number 10 of season 5, 70 in total, in a series which once focused on unheralded, or forgotten, bits of celluloid treasure, but has slowly segued from that simple definition to become more of a weird study of the history behind our deepest, most hidden secrets, our past lives, our present egos, our individual milestones, our collective mistakes, and, yes, our mutual future fate.
Who are we? What are we doing? When are we? Why do we do what we do, and will it make any difference at all in the Great Unknown’s expanse of deep spatial mystique? The dark matter obliterates all progress, pushing back on endeavors until one sees everything as it truly is—a tiny bit of substance weighing as much as all the universes combined. Yeah, from Hidden Flick to Hidden Secrets, we look into the depths of motivation, and this time cast our eye on Dreyer’s great film about one woman who didn’t allow her mind to overpower her heart in La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.
The film is centered around the true story of the French heroine who had a vision from God, or some cosmically divine force, which propelled her to believe that she was on a mission, and that mission meant that she was to aid at all costs the defeat of the English, France’s rival, during the Hundred Years’ War, from the 14th to the 15th Century.
Visionaries come and go, some are considered quite delusional, others completely insane; but, there is something profound and majestic and courageous in the young teenager’s quest to rid her land of its oppressors. She would eventually lose her life, burned at the stake, for her crime of heresy, a heretic at a time when such things, such “visions” were not allowed, especially not from the mind and lips and heart of a woman, a mere teenaged girl at that. Our past history is filled with stories of injustice, but one of the highest on the list has always been the condemnation of knowledge, sacred, occult, envisioned or otherwise, and none more so than the treatment of women, who were believed to be somehow less enlightened than their male counterparts, less worthy of alleged visions.
In the French film version, helmed by Dreyer, and adapted from the original transcriptions of the trial of Jeanne d’Arc by Dreyer and Joseph Delteil, the title character is played by Renée Jeanne Falconetti in her final role on film, and reminiscent of an artist, like Greta Garbo, the Beatles, Arthur Rimbaud and Vincent Van Gogh, who knew when to quit. She would continue in different forms of theatrical roles, including stage productions, but Falconetti would never again appear on film.
However, if one views her performance in Dreyer’s masterstroke of the cinema, it is quickly apparent that Falconetti had defined what it means to transcend the invisible, hidden fourth wall between artist and audience, to deliver an honest message about the human condition as she fights pain, incomparable struggle, searing heartbreak, and deeply conflicting emotions while warding off her male accusers. Was she a heretic, or a visionary? Did a god even exist to tell her these ideas? Concepts? Thoughts? Does it matter? Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake, but her lesson, portrayed with almost superhuman pathos by Falconetti, directed with astute care by Dreyer, and photographed with gifted excellence by Rudolph Maté, remains—the heart is mightier than the head.
We salvage an answer or three, and wander onwards, climbing further, always climbing, up dark, treacherous paths, sifting through false clues, rummaging through the aisles of yesterday, through the daunting mists of the abyss below; lost, we wander upwards, ever onwards, wandering spirits as we gaze ahead, up on top of the mountains in the mind. Scoot over. There is only so much room in this mad creator’s mind…
Alas, we return to the darkness from whence we came.
Hidden Flick – Season 5:
Set 1: Another Life, Brother, Oshare Can You See, The Ocean Learns to Sway > And the Wave Rolled Back, Rock ‘n’ Roll Drive-In, Part 2 >The Tale of the Two Films > AL, B Reprise*
Intermission
Intermission: Part IV – The Hit Man>Intermission: Part V – The Caan Man>
Set 2: The Magic Man > The Mountains in the Mind > A Thousand Barefoot Children
- La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc: Amazon.com / NetFlix
