Friday, July 13 | 5:30 pm
Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc is quite simply the most original film you will see this year. Or most any year. It’s the middle of summer, 1425, and on a sandy stretch of land beneath the Bleu de France sky, a young Joan of Arc wrestles with her vocation—and her country’s fate—amidst a never ending war with the English. Based on two texts from the turn of the twentieth century, the film follows Jeannette as she engages in dense theological speculation with her close friend Hauviette, her spiritual counsellor Madame Gervaise (eccentrically played by a pair of twin nuns), and her young uncle. However, there is a twist: they all sing or rap their thoughts to electronic and punk-metal backing, while improvising awkward dance moves. The effect is that of an open-air, middle-school pageant featuring some incredibly weighty themes—that is, Jeannette is a work of purest dissonance from the current cinematic master of comic contradiction, Li’l Quinquin and Slack Bay‘s Bruno Dumont.
Director Bruno Dumont | 2017 | In French with English subtitles | 105 minutes | NR | DCP