98
Metascore
21 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertTo modern audiences, raised on films where emotion is conveyed by dialogue and action more than by faces, a film like The Passion of Joan of Arc is an unsettling experience--so intimate we fear we will discover more secrets than we desire.
- 100The GuardianThe GuardianThe last silent film by Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer, it largely eschewed traditional master shots for a dazzling range of expressive, character-probing close-ups: no historical biopic has ever felt quite so unnervingly intimate.
- 100The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsDanish director Carl Dreyer's 1928 film The Passion Of Joan Of Arc is one of the indisputable masterpieces of the silent era.
- 100Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumDreyer’s radical approach to constructing space and the slow intensity of his mobile style make this “difficult” in the sense that, like all the greatest films, it reinvents the world from the ground up. It’s also painful in a way that all Dreyer’s tragedies are, but it will continue to live long after most commercial movies have vanished from memory.
- 100Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittChristian Science MonitorDavid SterrittThe chief reason for its legendary reputation is the brilliant match between its timeless historical subject - the trial that required Joan to defend her faith before skeptical representatives of church and state - and Dreyer's decision to film it primarily in relentless close-ups, using the sharply etched faces of his performers to suggest the invisible spiritual struggles going on beneath the drama's human dimensions.
- 100Slant MagazineEric HendersonSlant MagazineEric HendersonThe Passion of Joan of Arc remains the moment that [Dreyer] guided his medium to new heights, and also crafted a work that would endure outside of any specific context.
- FRANCE can well be proud of that great picture, The Passion of Jeanne d'Arc, for while Carl Dreyer, a Dane, is responsible for the conspicuously fine and imaginative use of the camera, it is the gifted performance of Maria Falconetti as the Maid of Orleans that rises above everything in this artistic achievement.
- 88ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliIt is among the most powerful early arguments in favor of a minimalist approach to filmmaking and champions the effectiveness of the close-up when used properly. It's hard to imagine anyone today arguing its place in the pantheon of Silent Olympians.
- In the hands of the great Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer it becomes a potent saga of battered faith, vicious bullying and personal torment.