The audience gave a standing ovation at the premiere of Bruno Dumont’s musical film “Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc” at Cannes.
I left, astonished—and perturbed. How could nobody not have noticed the emptiness of this new offering by Dumont? The film is an exercise in cynicism. Jeannette, played by two young girls, sings on the plains of Flanders in rhyme, off-key, pleading to God to help her save France, which is surely his country of preference. While the first half hour is amusing, for its originality—young Joan wandering with the sheep in the sunny fields and crooning to her childhood friend—and its flashes of humor, by the end one wonders what is the point, beyond poking fun at religion?
I walked up the circular stairs of the theater musing on why such a film appeals.
Suddenly a passing young man stopped me in my tracks.
“What did you think?” he said abruptly, staring.
Careful not to offend (as he could be part of the enthusiastic crowd), I said, with decorum. “Frankly, it is not the kind of film that touches me.”
“That film is a waste of my time!” he interrupted angrily. “It’s just a one-liner, a joke. And now the critics are going to write great things, because he is Bruno Dumont!”
“Well, I too am a critic,” I said. “But it is true that critics normally do not like to write bad criticism.”
We strolled out together on the Croisette, and I continued, pondering the old adage: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
“What, after all, is the point of writing negative words?”
“What is the point? The point is that many great directors would like to have the chance to express their vision---and never get a chance! While others---who are already celebrated in the industry—get to make whatever rubbish they want, and everyone claps! It is centrally important to culture that the truth be told!”
So I went directly to Bruno Dumont and told him truthfully how I felt.
The self-assured handsome director laughed.
“It is not a cynical film at all!” he said.
“It’s not cynical to have Joan of Arc staring into the heavens and crooning, to electro-pop music, that France is clearly God’s favorite country and that “everything is Christian under God’s gaze”? Or to show her and her nitwit cousin going to see the Dauphin, and falling off the horse in the mud?”
Dumont laughed. “Sure there are touches of irony. But just a few! Mine is a tragic comedy. I adapted Charles Peguy’s 19th century script to music, to counterpoint his seriousness with light.”
“But what meaning does your film give to Joan of Arc? Joan of Arc is typically a spiritual theme in cinema---like in Dreyer’s masterpiece—and very meaningful.”
“My film is also spiritual!”
“But Joan seems like a joke!”
Dumont retorted ably: “No, she’s not,” he said in deep reverence. “I take her seriously. I show how her delirious mysticism grows.’
In the press kit, Dumont expresses even more reverence:
“Joan of Arc emerges before our eyes: Young Joan, dormant an budding, all trembling and frail as she leaves Domremy, to be what she will become, as exulted as she was.”
It is a reverence that can only be taken as tongue-in-cheek.
“And spiritual how?” I continued.
“Transcendence lies not with God, but with the grace and beauty of my film itself!’
He pointed upwards at the Cannes blue sky. “My film connects the spectator to the real transcendent. It’s a film for youth, full of joy and grace. One falls in love with Jeannette! The beauty of the film.”
The interest of Dumont’s film for me, however, lies in its political impact. To treat the theme of Joan of Arc is a very loaded issue in France, considering how her symbolism has been used politically by both the right and left.
“Yes!” Dumont agreed with ardor. “The minute you touch Joan of Arc, you are doing something political. In France, the Joan mythology is very metaphoric, all about being ‘chosen.’ There is great power in evoking Joan for politics.”
He continued in exclamation: “Look at how she has been used by the nationalist parties, the socialist party, the rightwing party the Front National!”
He smiled sardonically: “’In the name of God’, we act.”
And now Joan has been used once more---to serve a new vision of God.
Bruno Dumont