What kind of film is The Passion of Joan of Arc? (Isabelle Kirschbaum)

While the historical background and setting of this film do have some importance, I would like to make the argument that it is primarily a film about the internal lives of human beings, not a historical drama. To me, this is most clearly true because of the style in which it is filmed. The camera rarely ever focuses on anything other than a person’s face. There is almost no context at all, whether physically (showing where the characters are in the space) or in terms of the plot. It is impossible to tell where the characters stand in relation to each other, what their bodies look like, where they are in the room, or what the room looks like. The only focus of the camera is the faces of the characters. This focus is so extreme that it is hard to even think of the characters as characters because they are not actors in a story. To the viewer, they are only faces expressing emotions. The plot, even though it’s simple, is hard to follow because the camera doesn’t let you see what’s happening or how the characters interact. It’s hard to keep track of who’s who, because characters are never shown in any context.

The few times that we do get a shot of the general setting, it’s usually warped by some strange camera angle. The wide shots are almost always more symbolic than contextual. For example, Joan is often shown against a backdrop with a cross behind her. These types of shots strike me as the kind of image that would make a good painting of such an event—a kind of representation of the event, not a realistic depiction. The name “Joan of Arc” might call to mind the image of Joan with her crown and arrow, or of her holding the cross before being put to death. These are symbolic images that give me the sense that I’m watching something significant, but they don’t necessarily help me understand the characters or the story any better.

The point of this is to say that the intimacy and symbolism of the film are far more important than its historical context. You barely need to know anything about the real story of Joan of Arc in order to appreciate the film, because while it’s technically about the historical figure, that is secondary to its focus. The purpose of the film, in my opinion, is to depict the internal struggles of a few people with as little relation to the outside world as possible. This is why the film is composed almost entirely of close-ups, which draw our attention not only to the individual people, but even past their personhood (because who they are as a person barely matters) and to the most basic experiences and expressions of emotion.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know who Joan of Arc was or why she was important. It only matters that you can see what’s expressed on her face and recognize her emotions as those of another human being. The lack of context allows the viewer to feel sympathy in the most fundamental way. We can understand how the characters feel without really understanding why they feel that way or even what it is that they’re feeling. This effect would be ruined if the film was a historical drama.