The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Ark

Yes, and I must say I didn't enjoy it.

I thought the film tried to get deep into Joan's head, but the effect wasn't that great. Depending on how you interpret, the film sort of undermines her status as a saint and truly spoken to by God. It reduces her "visions" to more schizophrenia than anything else.

There's also plenty thrown in to confuse and horrify IMO. The creepy, bloody Jesus figure I thought was pretty over-the-top, as was the murder/rape of Joan's sister.

The film betrays her final act of glory and sacrifice. Instead of it being a conscious decision to die rather than confess, the film has her flip-flopping and seeming more confused and tricked than determined and at peace. Sort of like Luke screaming as he drops from the antenna rather than falling silently by choice.

I'm with Stew on this one, voltes5. Great cinematography and production values, but I thought Milla was awful, and I could never conjure up any empathy for her at all. The film would jump from bloody action set-piece to psuedo-religious mumbo-jumbo and back again so often it was hard to get a grip on what the filmmaker was trying to convey.

Plus, the Joan of Arc mythology has never been all that interesting to me.

However, I have to admit, my roommate went bonkers over it, and the DVD I bought him was a huge hit.

Well voltes, is that was your only past knowledge of her, I can understand why you'd like the film a little more. I myself, knowing of her status as military leader and saint, found the sort of shock value "re-imagining" of her and her convictions pretty offensive.

And not to get too off movie task, in the Bible God orders the armies of David and many others to kill and leave no one left of their enemies who have betrayed and gone against the word of God. Also, translated to the original Hebrew text, the commandment "Thou shall not kill" more closely translates to "Thou shall not murder". To say God makes no distinction (killing is killing) is to say that he counts all the soldiers who fought to stop Nazi Germany just as bad as any cold-blooded murderer. And that's clearly not the case if you study the Bible.

But, back to the film. I liked the battle scenes at times, but through a lot of it I just found them pretty depressing. Its like all the goriest moments of "Braveheart" without any of the honor and heroism that made it all okay. It seemed more like, "See what all these sick medieval weapons do!" than anything.

Dreyer's The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc is pure classic silent cinema.

Watch it.

As for Besson flick, no thanks....

Mlle (Maria?) Falconetti should of been in more flicks. She only did this one right?

She was Joan of Ark, Mia has nothing on her.

Let me chime in with another "no thanks" to this flick - after the inventive, fun film that was The Fifth Element I went in with fairly high expectations and ran into a film that isn't even mediocre. Jovovich never really conjures up much sympathy or gives any glimpse as to why one would follow Joan of Arc;

I agree pretty much with Stew's assessment. Subpar.

I agree with Voltes. I think it's a pretty good movie and I like Milla's portrayal as Joan. It casts doubt on what she really was, and I thought it worked well, in that regard.

But compared to The Passion of Joan Of Arc, there's no contest.