The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc Review
by "Steve Rhodes" (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)November 18th, 1999
THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
For moviegoers who think that the problem with today's cinema is its reliance on subtlety and its lack of gore, Luc Besson (THE FIFTH ELEMENT) has made just the movie for them, THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC, a movie so over the top that it could become a campy cult classic.
Shortly after the film opens, an 8-year-old Joan of Arc (Jane Valentine), who later becomes famous for hearing voices, leading armies and getting burned at the stake, witnesses the brutal murder and rape of her older sister Catherine. In 8MM, Joel Schumacher was criticized for making a sleazy movie about a search for a snuff film. Besson starts his movie by showing a snuff scene.
Catherine is attacked by an animalistic English soldier with prominently bad teeth. (Poor dental health is so conspicuously featured in the movie that you half expect a toothpaste product placement.) After pinning her to the door with his body, the soldier stabs her with his sword and rapes her as she dies. The camera switches frequently to Joan's perspective, hidden behind the door that her sister is being raped against. Thus our horror is intensified by observing the rape through the sister's eyes. To dramatically underscore the point that the English soldiers are like animals, we witness them before the rape pouring stew on the top of the dirty table so they can then eat off of it like dogs.
Soon afterwards in the movie, Joan sneaks into a church at night. Like a bad horror movie, Besson has the interior lit by huge flashes of lightning. As loud thunder crashes, Joan breaks into the box on the altar where the communion chalice is kept. Guzzling the wine until the blood of Christ drips all over her face, chin and throat, she accomplishes her mission of being at one with God.
Milla Jovovich (THE FIFTH ELEMENT) plays the 19-year-old Joan of Arc as an escaped mental patient with an orgasmic intensity. Her performance, which at first seems quite impressive, quickly becomes tediously repetitive. A beady-eyed John Malkovich is the duplicitous Dauphin, whom Joan helps become Charles VII. Looking like she suffers from gas, Faye Dunaway plays Charles's sourpuss mother, Yolande D'Aragon.
Most of the movie consists of confusing battle scenes of hand-to-hand combat. Frantically edited to match Joan's spastic energy, the scenes are so full of gore that the MPAA should now retire the NC-17 rating. If they can give this movie an R, which they did, then there is no point any longer in pretending that the NC-17 rating even exists. Besides the despicable opening scene of a murder to enhance one's rape pleasure, there are plenty of decapitations with blood spewing everywhere, severed arms and general random acts of horrific depravity. Joan does save one man from getting his skull crushed by one of her soldiers who wants to steal his teeth.
Besson shares the writing credits, if not exactly the honors, with Andrew Birkin, the author of such gems as KING DAVID. Among the laughably bad lines is one uttered by The Conscience (Dustin Hoffman no less). "When does the pain end and the pleasure begin?" he asks Joan. For THE MESSENGER's audience, it is as soon as the ending credits begin to roll.
THE MESSENGER: THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC runs one hundred and forty one long minutes, but who's counting? It is incorrectly rated R for strong graphic battles, a rape and language. It should be considered NC-17 and would be inappropriate for anyone less than a high school senior. Sadly, there was an 8-year-old next to me and other kids even younger in our audience. What are these parents thinking?
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