Lourdes

A girl with MS can't move her body, except for the face muscles. She goes to Lourdes, the place of miracles. She's not just tired of her life, she's of course also envious about life of others.

Usually, it's obvious there on the screen you shall look. Not here. Long takes, many extras, everybody make their moves and everybody is interesting, although you may forget them for a while, watching others.

Quietly, so many believable emotions are to be found here. Jealousy, slight passion, hopes, disappointments. And after a while you're not watching, you're among these pilgrims, and although you've never been in this environment, you recognize everything. And Sylvie Testud is superb.

That was George Martin's description of Lennon and Maccartney's songwriting partnership: Maccartney provided the olive oil, and Lennon the vinegar. The balance is just as perfect in this movie, which manages to capture the temple of crass which is Lourdes, without ridiculing the faith that leads people to revere it. It is a quiet movie, with little dialogue, and frequent recurring motifs—religious services, visits to the grotto, Lourdes water in ghastly containers. The little cast of characters is superb, and there are no weak performances here.

If I had one criticism, it's that the movie is sometimes too subtle for its own good. Occasionally, I like to be told what I'm watching and why it's significant. Perhaps this is my own crudeness. Nevertheless a brilliant movie, that made me chuckle and yet moved me.

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

Forgive my ignorance of neither Lourdes or theology, without a Catholic background, to me the miracles sound hyperbolic and outlandish at first, but after watching the film, even though being an agnostic, some kind of insight surfaced upon my mind's eye that the miracle itself could be a fatal burden to whom it is granted, which is my very direct response, which I am not sure would be the prime aim of the director, for me, it does pique my curiosity definitely.

Due to the fact that the mystery has still been in a moot beyond any explanation by now, the third feature from Austrian director Jessica Hausner (whose previous film is a haunting ghost story - HOTEL 2004) cannily digresses the mythological topic of the epiphanic moment, instead, the film focuses directly on the individuals of the pilgrim group (thought from a restrained distance), the most noteworthy comes from their blunt reactions before/after the miraculous event, which unavoidably compass piety, expectation, sympathy versus selfishness, jealousy, gloating, envy and bitterness. As a matter of fact it is more like a discreet dissertation on a test of humanity, which literally and cruelly reveals the inconvenient truth that it is our soul needs to be cured.

What I truly commend here is the laconic shots, the full-blown palette and a calm stance which is pervasive throughout the entire movie,

all of which establish a sincere austerity and mercy to its views, plus the non-intrusion composition drastically enhances the solemnity and sacrality of its proposition

The female protagonist Sylvie Testud's performance is extraordinarily astute, despite of her word-deficient and gesture-limited role while the supporting group is also tellingly awesome, terse but impressive!

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.