My Rating : 8/10
Between February 21 and March 24, 1431, Jeanne d'Arc was interrogated nearly a dozen times by a tribunal, always keeping her humility and steadfast claim of innocence. Instead of being held in a church prison with nuns as guards, she was held in a military prison. Joan was threatened with rape and torture, though there is no record that either actually occurred. She protected herself by tying her soldiers' clothes tightly together with dozens of cords. Frustrated they could not break her, the tribunal eventually used her military clothes against her, charging that she dressed like a man.
Simple, minimal and fluid - 'Procès de Jeanne d'Arc' is restrained, authentic and affecting in it's cinematography employing very few camera angles - it's almost claustrophobic so as to invite the viewer to the 'dark ages' of the 15th Century the film is based in. Bresson has scripted his film using transcripts from the actual trials and therefore bringing about a sense of the people living hundreds of years ago and the peregrinations of the time period.
Being an auteur, Bresson puts his ascetic stamp of cinematography by paring every aspect of the film down to a minimum showing the highest level of care and unembellished logical realism.
This is where cinema and grace are juxtaposed through suspension of linear temporality of time, space and dialogue. A masterful marriage of film-form and content - simple and unadorned.
On May 29, 1431, the tribunal announced Joan of Arc was guilty of heresy. On the morning of May 30, she was taken to the marketplace in Rouen and burned at the stake, before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people. She was 19 nineteen years old. One legend surrounding the event tells of how her heart survived the fire unaffected. Her ashes were gathered and scattered in the Seine.
Between February 21 and March 24, 1431, Jeanne d'Arc was interrogated nearly a dozen times by a tribunal, always keeping her humility and steadfast claim of innocence. Instead of being held in a church prison with nuns as guards, she was held in a military prison. Joan was threatened with rape and torture, though there is no record that either actually occurred. She protected herself by tying her soldiers' clothes tightly together with dozens of cords. Frustrated they could not break her, the tribunal eventually used her military clothes against her, charging that she dressed like a man.
Simple, minimal and fluid - 'Procès de Jeanne d'Arc' is restrained, authentic and affecting in it's cinematography employing very few camera angles - it's almost claustrophobic so as to invite the viewer to the 'dark ages' of the 15th Century the film is based in. Bresson has scripted his film using transcripts from the actual trials and therefore bringing about a sense of the people living hundreds of years ago and the peregrinations of the time period.
Being an auteur, Bresson puts his ascetic stamp of cinematography by paring every aspect of the film down to a minimum showing the highest level of care and unembellished logical realism.
This is where cinema and grace are juxtaposed through suspension of linear temporality of time, space and dialogue. A masterful marriage of film-form and content - simple and unadorned.
On May 29, 1431, the tribunal announced Joan of Arc was guilty of heresy. On the morning of May 30, she was taken to the marketplace in Rouen and burned at the stake, before an estimated crowd of 10,000 people. She was 19 nineteen years old. One legend surrounding the event tells of how her heart survived the fire unaffected. Her ashes were gathered and scattered in the Seine.