Lourdes

Lourdes is a famous Catholic shrine in France, visited by pilgrims from around the world seeking miraculous cures for serious medical conditions.

Christine(Sylvie Testud) is wheelchair bound due to multiple sclerosis. Although not deeply religious, she decides to try to be healed by divine intervention. After a few days, she slowly is able to get up and walk. Other visitors with much more faith than Christine have philosophical debates on the fairness of it all.

She meets a man while apparently making progress physically, but the budding romance fizzles quickly when the guy proves to be unable to accept her limitations.

A night view of the city with only the faithful holding up candles while Ave Maria plays in the background is simply breathtaking. I am not personally religious, but I grew up Catholic and can appreciate the beauty of the symbolism and message. Jessica Hausner does not preach to the audience at any point, but gives us the opportunity to make up our own minds about faith and belief in miracles. Lourdes is an interesting conversation starter and a good movie.

Christine (Sylvie Testud) is wheelchair-bound, and is suffering from multiple sclerosis. She travels to the pilgrimage site of Lourdes in the Pyrenees Mountains to both escape from her isolation, and seek some kind of answers to her situation. Compared to the other pilgrims, Christine has little faith in God. Yet while she's there, she miraculously gains controls of her limbs and she rises from her wheelchair. The church are quick to jump on it as a 'miracle', but seek medical advice in order to confirm this.

The film never takes a stance in regards to its attitude to either religion or spirituality, to the point where the 'miracle' that takes place takes a backseat. This is a film that is more concerned with its characters' plight, and how the people around Christine react to the possible miracle that they witness. It does, if anything, portray the Catholic faith in a positive light. The priest seeks all the medical advice he can get before he will believe it as a miracle, and the helpers at Lourdes (minus one rather self-involved girl) are shown to have genuine love for the work they do, and its importance. But it does also show the slightly ridiculous side, as the Church will only recognise it as an 'official' miracle if it ticks certain boxes.

it does not linger on the idea of faith, as previously stated, but instead how it corrupts, bewilders, and enchants the people around Christine. Some of the pilgrims talk bitterly between themselves and doubt her sincerity, to the point where they begin to dismiss the idea of miracles, which is the very thing that they went to Lourdes to experience. One of the male helpers initially shows an interest in Christine, glancing and smiling at her every now and then. Yet when she begins to walk again, he seems to almost completely fall for her, much to the jealousy of one of the female workers. It's a startling commentary on how humanity can be corrupted and influenced by the idea of religion.

Lourdes is a quiet, gentle and ponderous portrayal of a woman desperately seeking an answer to her illness and finding it in the last place she would expect. It doesn't force its ideas down your throat, but instead it lets it flow across the small interactions and expressions of its characters. The pace may sometimes come to a standstill, but this is a richly rewarding experience from one of Austria's most exciting new directors.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

The photography and mise-en-scene are great but the characters lack depth (Testud's room mate for example), the acting is great considering what the skinny script offers them (Testud and Seydoux are remarkables) but lots of subplots are left unexploited

I didn't think the film was that rewarding, it drags a bit towards the end, and the film feels a bit pointless sometimes

The film doesn't know if it should be Christian, critical or ironic, the best parts are when the it's unjudgemenal and contemplative

In the end I don't think Catholics or Agnostics would really like that film very much, it's got a strong sense of aesthetics but lacks personality and determination

Kinda like reading "Magic Mtn"; a long, sometimes dull, but ultimately worthwhile tour through institutional hell, the institutions in question, medicine in the Mann novel and the church in Jessica Hausner's film, made all the more horrendous in that they masquerade as "healing". Film loses a bit of energy, though, to say nothing of credibility, once Christine experiences her temporary "cure". At that point Hausner abandons her heretofore effective tone of serio comic reality for one of allegory and kind of allows her hatred of humanity to overwhelm her. Still, a most impressive film from a director whose work has up to now been unknown to me and whose other movies I will assiduously seek. Give it a B plus.

Summary

Lourdes is a remarkable psychological and social x-ray of the world around the famous religious complex in the Pyrenees, with that clinical precision so typical of Austrian cinema and with a delicate balance in which hints of irony always give way to respect and piety. The film achieves moments of an absolutely human, moving religiosity, such as I have rarely seen in a film.

Review:

Jessica Hausner's film follows Christine, a motor disabled person, during her journey through the famous tourist-religious complex around the Lourdes Grotto in the French Pyrenees.

Multiple dimensions and themes run through this film. On the one hand, there is a look at the disease, the relationship between the healthy and the sick and how she considers the Catholic religion to the sick and the concept of healing, put into the mouths of their own priests.

On the other hand, Lourdes paints a picture of that touristic-religious universe viewed with that clinical precision so typical of Austrian cinema, with a delicate balance in which hints of irony always give way to respect and piety. It is difficult at first to place oneself in that world of patients, companions, relatives, nuns, priests and volunteers of the Order of Malta (where each one fulfills a precise, transitory or permanent function), where a sociogram is drawn where solidarity intersects , misgivings, hope, desire, jealousy, envy, frustration and, of course, faith, in a setting that is enriched with real shots of masses and mass movements in which the film leans into the documentary . They all follow a kind of procession (with something of a way of the cross) scheduled and methodical, waiting for the miracle of healing to take place.

Why do the sick go to Lourdes? Christine answers that question early in the film, and not exactly from a pious place. Sylvie Testud remarkably puts the body to her character and her evolution, accompanied by Maria (Lea Seydoux, in a rather small role), the companion who embodies health.

As we had already seen in the also notable Little Joe, Hausner beautifully frames her scenes preferably in fixed and geometric planes. Supported by a wonderful use of Bach's music, Lourdes achieves moments of an absolutely human, moving religiosity, such as I have rarely seen in a film.