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.

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.

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

I am Roman Catholic. Lourdes is a blessed, mystical place. I hear. The story goes, the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in a grotto near Lourdes several times. Word spread, a shrine was built, miracles occurred, all in this small community in the south of France. Now, millions travel to Lourdes every year, looking for intervention from St. Bernadette and the Blessed Mother. While I've never been there, I have been to shrines, like Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount-Royal in Montreal. The relics for sale and presence of the pilgrims are a little scary, but there was no denying the power of the place. So, I was very interested to see a pilgrimage from the perspective of a pilgrim in Lourdes, a movie playing at the Cleveland International Film Festival, this week. Christine is a young woman from France who has multiple sclerosis. She's lost control of her body from the neck down. But, her mind is vibrant, she seems to accept the help of nurse volunteers at Lourdes with a pleasant demeanor. She tells a priest, in confession, that she gets angry over her diagnosis and feels envious of able bodied people, like a nurse who is flirting with a man on the trip that she fancies. This is like a group tour, with a different activity each day: a hike through the grotto, a bath in the water, even an award at the end of the trip for the "Best Pilgrim." Christine's mother is with her on the trip. Their relationship is one of the things that bothered me in the movie. While her mother accepts the role of caregiver, they barely talk or interact, except in a very distant fashion. I didn't get that. A couple of the older volunteers hang together at night and discuss deep topics of faith and spirituality. Juxtapose that with Christine confessing to her nurse that she is not really a believer, she just goes on the pilgrimages because she can't really get out of the house for much else. When the inevitable miracle occurs, within the group, some are jealous, others are skeptical, others just wonder why some are chosen and others are not. Lourdes is a very quiet, very slow moving film. I guess I was hoping for more of an epiphany, but at the end, I wasn't at all sure what I was supposed to take away from it. I was interested but not satisfied. I give Lourdes a 7 out of 10.

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.