Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.
Dreyer's masterpiece is defined above all by its extraordinary cinematography — relentless extreme close-ups of Renée Jeanne Falconetti's face constitute one of the most radical and emotionally devastating visual strategies in film history. Falconetti's performance is widely considered among the greatest ever captured on screen, achieving an almost unbearable intensity through pure expression. Novelty remains very high: no film before or since has used the human face so exclusively and so devastatingly as its primary dramatic instrument, giving it a singular, unmistakable identity in cinema. The plot is necessarily constrained by its historical subject and courtroom structure — functional and dignified but not inventive in itself, earning a solid but not exceptional mark. The ending, while historically determined and powerfully rendered, follows an expected trajectory toward martyrdom that limits its dramatic surprise, keeping it at a competent rather than exceptional level.