This is one of those movies that’s awkward for me to write a review about. I feel like sometimes you can be given a lot of shit for not liking a movie that’s considered a classic, but for some reason I find this to be even more true when talking about really old movies. For what it’s worth, I really have genuinely enjoyed a lot of the classics from the silent era that I’ve seen, but if I’m being completely honest I just didn’t care for The Passion of Joan of Arc all that much.

I’ll admit, some of this might just come down to subjective taste and bias. I’ve never been much of a history buff, and so honestly I’ve never been much of a fan of historical dramas either. So, maybe if you’re really interested in Joan of Arc then you’ll like this movie a lot more than I did, I don’t know. Maybe it just wasn’t for me. But anyway, the movie is exactly what you think it is: the story of Joan of Arc. In particular, though, it skips past all of the wars she fought and instead just focuses on telling the story of her trial and execution. The movie mainly features Joan being interrogated by her captors, and eventually executed for not backing down on her faith in what she considers to be her mission from God. It’s an interesting enough story I suppose, but it still just wasn’t one that I was all that interested in.

One of the reasons why I felt like I wasn’t so big on The Passion of Joan of Arc is its style. This felt like the earliest example I’ve ever seen of what I’d label as an “arthouse film.” There are many of these made nowadays…movies with lavish designs, metaphorical plots, abstract styles, and things like that. While The Passion of Joan of Arc doesn’t inherently have some of these qualities, it very much felt like I was watching an arthouse film. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I’ve never enjoyed an arthouse film either, it’s just that they typically have a different focus than what I want out of a movie. While I certainly watch movies for great performances, writing, directing, and all of that, at the end of the day my primary reason for watching movies is escapism. I want to be entertained for about two hours, and to me The Passion of Joan of Arc was devoid of any entertainment value. I know that its subject matter isn’t really an entertaining subject, so it’s not like I wanted a comedy out of the movie or anything, but for me it was just such a bore to watch most of the time, and that’s just unacceptable to me.

I need to take a second to talk about Renee Jeanne Falconetti though. Falconetti is the actress that plays Joan in the movie, and if you’ve ever heard of this movie it’s most likely because you heard about Falconetti’s performance. It seems to be the movie’s main claim to fame, and one of the biggest reasons why its managed to stay on the all-time best lists over the years. It’s been largely considered to be one of the greatest performances on all film of all time, and to that…I have to disagree. Don’t get me wrong, there are sections of the movie where I feel like the performance is solid, so I’m not saying it’s a BAD performance or that Falconetti isn’t a talented actress or anything like that. My main source of contention is that I feel like the performance is overacted. There are many scenes where Falconetti is simply just staring at the camera with very wide eyes, and to me it felt more exaggerated than it did captivating. I feel like her performances shines through best in scenes like being taken into the torture chamber or being burned at the stake, but for a lot of the movie I just don’t really agree that it’s such a good performance that it should be considered “the best of all time.” The real kicker to me, too, is that Falconetti herself doesn’t agree that it’s all that great of a performance. This was only the second and final movie she ever did, and I’ve read that she’s said that she doesn’t see why people have praised her performance so highly. Anyway, do I think that Falconetti gives a good performance? Yes, mostly. But do I think it’s one of the best performances of all time? Hell no.

The other frustrating thing about reviewing a movie like this is that even though I didn’t enjoy it, I can’t really say that it’s a BAD movie. It’s not. It’s very well-made, and so (like many other arthouse movies) it might not have high entertainment value, but it does have high artistic value. Carl Theodor Dreyer directs the movie, and for what it’s worth he’s put together a well-made movie (even if, from what I’ve read, he was a real tyrant on set). The set actually had holes dug into it so that the cameras could be put at lower angles. This provides some great shots to make Joan’s interrogators look more intimidating. Dreyer also uses a lot of close-up shots and no make-up on the actors to help capture the true ugliness of the story. The cinematography is also beautiful, and so I think it’s one of the best-looking movies of the 1920s. It definitely does have a lot of artistic merit, and so even though I didn’t personally enjoy the movie, I can’t deny that it has some great things going for it, and so I struggle to call it a bad movie.

Like I said, this is a difficult movie to review. It’s well-made, but I really just didn’t enjoy my time with it. I struggle with giving a negative review to an old classic because I fear that for some it might discredit my merit in reviewing movies. However, I’m not going to say a movie is a classic just because everyone else does, and so while I’ve enjoyed other classics of the era, I just didn’t find The Passion of Joan of Arc to be as good as other people say. If you have more of an interest in Joan of Arc or in arthouse movies than I do, then you might find something more to enjoy in the movie than I did, but this one just wasn’t for me.

2.5/5