On Jeanne la Pucelle (Joan the Maid) (1994)

Dir. Jacque Rivette – France – Drama

A diptych of patient, raw films, whose style shies away from tenebrism. Its beauty is in the plain browns, greys, and midtones, blended together in natural light as much as possible, taking cues from Barry Lyndon, and period dramas that favour accuracy as their aesthetic.

As much as this feels like it ought to be an epic, you can’t escape the intimacy of these films. The span of time and space they fill while remaining so close to the subject is a perspective we are treated to very rarely, especially well. We share private moments with Joan as a girl before leaving to Orleans – her euphoria (dare I say gender euphoria, to retroactively apply a much more appropriate modern term here) at cropping her hair more masculine – that, as her reputation precedes her now, 600 years in the future, brings her back down to earth. Not a handful of scenes later she spends mere moments with the aim of her visions and has him totally and utterly convinced of her divinity. It’s an incredible turn. And yet we are totally convinced and immersed within the film’s 15c setting. Its documentary tendencies and style, as are opposed to the director’s other more intensely stylised French New Wave fictional films, bring our awareness abruptly to the acute gravity of the situation. We are on Jeanne’s side and to protect the extance of France.

The casting on this film is nigh-on perfect. Not to suggest any knowledge of the French 1990s alternative film acting pool, but I doubt you could find more period-appropriate faces than those on parade here. Sandrine Bonnaire as Jeanne in particular is an absolute blessing, her medieval androgyny works wonders (miracles, even) on us. Her supporting cast in her fellow men-at-arms have equally appropriate late medieval faces for the most part, with roughly hewn features; hardy men whose descendants you might find working in radio nowadays. This is the first key to making any re-enactment or film based in exhaustive detail on real events: a high level of control of your variables, to the point where the film carries itself off as just so happening to feel cleanly real. That is to say: not bring realism, or reality, but as to feel like the film crew was transported into history and brought back with them this piece of cinema as an artefact.

Combined with the measured pace of the cuts, and the painterly angles and lighting which evoke baroque images of her from decades after the end of the 100-years war, the film seems to glow from underneath. It somehow still manages to present itself as meditative and methodical, despite the violent nature of some of the scenes. It’s cold, it’s not soulful filmmaking, but it does emote something in me, and I can’t explain why. Its mannerisms are not dissimilar to the way that Haneke might film an urban setting, despite being the polar opposite in place and time.