This will be barely a stub, but I've just seen this film at the NY Film Festival, and found myself quite startled by its powerful effect on my mind and emotions. Dumont is a bit of an enigma in that his stories deal with events and issues that seem to be inflammatory (child rape in "L'Humanite", Islamic fundamentalist terror in this film) and yet manages to cloak these issues in such enigmatic human behavior that one's own opinions (or prejudices) are put aside, at least while viewing and thinking about the films. In "L'Humanite," for instance, the identity of the rapist/murderer is completely obscured. One character (who seems very possibly a likely suspect) confesses to the crime, at which point the inspector (the film's leading character and a very odd bird he is) leaves the room -- and in the final image it is he, not the man who confessed, who is seen in handcuffs. Very startling indeed! And it has confused me for a long time. But watching "Hadewijch" tonight, it occurred to me that this ending is meant to convey that both characters are responsible: Joseph (the confessed rapist) may have committed the crime (or was it really Pharaon -- the inspector -- and Joseph has confessed out of love for him? -- they have a very intimate almost sexual moment after the confession) but Pharaon assumes, as Joseph's friend, the responsibility. In reading Dumont's published script, it is clear that he intends Joseph to be the guilty party -- but of course that is just a script -- "L'Humanite" is a film. Similarly, in "Hadewijch" we get close enough to all the characters to feel that their obsessions come out of their basic human needs (however distorted) and thus we are slow to judge them. Dumont revealed, when asked at a post-showing discussion, that he does not believe in God, but that he does believe in man's spiritual life, that the spiritual is found IN life. Somehow, I found this very much in tune with my own perception of his intentions. It is a very beautiful, humanistic cinema that Dumont is creating, but I wonder how many viewers feel comfortable with this level of ambiguity (including, perhaps, me!).
11 Reviews
The lover's journey to the Beloved
tigerfish505 July 2012
'Hadewijch' is loosely based on the poems of a 13th century female Christian mystic who lived in Belgium. Little is known of her life other than it's been deduced that she came from wealthy stock and didn't belong to a convent. Director Dumont utilizes this background to fashion a contemporary allegory of the seeker's journey to God. He begins his story with a young novice nun, Celine, being expelled from her convent for obsessive self-mortification. The young woman appears to be more disturbed and confused than a true seeker after enlightenment, and her eccentric behavior is partially explained by alienation from disinterested worldly parents after she returns to her family's palatial Parisian townhouse.
Celine begins hanging out with some working class North African Muslim men, empathizing with their religious devotion - and when she expresses her spiritual fervor in extreme terms, they start to consider her as a potential suicide bomber. A number of medieval Christians learned contemplative disciplines from Sufi mystics, and this plot device may be a metaphor for ego annihilation, while simultaneously suggesting all religions are just winding roads leading to the same God. Unfortunately 'Hadewijch' is burdened with too many ponderously slow shots and silent passages that spoil the narrative flow. Celine's story of spiritual longing and repentance might have been told more eloquently if the film had borrowed some of the conventional style of 'Vision' - a biographical account of another medieval female mystic, Hildegard von Bingen - just as that film in its turn could have used some of 'Hadewijch's' intensity and imagination.
Celine begins hanging out with some working class North African Muslim men, empathizing with their religious devotion - and when she expresses her spiritual fervor in extreme terms, they start to consider her as a potential suicide bomber. A number of medieval Christians learned contemplative disciplines from Sufi mystics, and this plot device may be a metaphor for ego annihilation, while simultaneously suggesting all religions are just winding roads leading to the same God. Unfortunately 'Hadewijch' is burdened with too many ponderously slow shots and silent passages that spoil the narrative flow. Celine's story of spiritual longing and repentance might have been told more eloquently if the film had borrowed some of the conventional style of 'Vision' - a biographical account of another medieval female mystic, Hildegard von Bingen - just as that film in its turn could have used some of 'Hadewijch's' intensity and imagination.
A Meditation on Faith and Fanaticism
tjackson15 July 2010
Dumont explores the fine line between martyrdom, fanaticism, faith, and delusion in this meditative (some will call slow paced) look at a young Christian fanatic who befriends a group of 'terrorist' Muslims. Throughout there's a degree of sexual threat and violence so present in his films, as well as the very physical presence of nature, of weather, of the elements. It's an edgy mix, yet most of the time we're looking at the world through the vulnerable searching eyes and face of Julie Sokolowski as Céline/Hadewijch, the latter being a 13th century mystic who also sublimated courtship for a love to God, and who also took no vows as a nun. As Celine, the girl is sent from the convent for being too extreme in her devotion. She begins to naively explore the real world. Like the earlier poet and mystic Hadewijch – into whom she slowly seems to be transforming – Celine is also from a very wealthy family, a fact that sets up another set of questions and contrasts in this contemporary context. I love looking at the faces director Dumont offers up, and as always he sets up situations that call out for argument and conversation. The ending is sudden and unexpected, and you are left to question not only what might happen next, but to where exactly has the director led us.
timjacksonweb.com
timjacksonweb.com
The Devil, Probably
tieman6428 April 2011
Warning: Spoilers
"I think that the only possible manifestation of God's love is through man. Every other aspect is invisible." – Bruno Dumont
Bruno Dumont directs "Hadewijch", the spiritual successor to Robert Bresson's "Mouchette" and "The Devil, Probably".
Like "The Devil, Probably", the film revolves around a teenager who has been born into a life of extreme wealth and privilege. Her name is Celine, and guilt has pushed her into cutting off all ties with the ruling class. Deciding to adopt a life of asceticism and abstinence, Celine joins a monastery. Unfortunately the local nuns do not take her newfound spirituality seriously. They eject her from their convent and push her back out into a world she abhors. Celine is distraught. She wants only to be close to God.
It's important to realise that Dumont has no interest in either religion or faith. His "God" is not a literal figurehead or deity, but rather a state of personal morality which his heroes often strive to live up to. The film's title, "Hadewijch", itself refers to a 13 century mystic who attempted to sublimate her complete being such that she became wholly pure like Christ. In "Hadewijch", this form of purification becomes Celine's rejection of both humanity and its socioeconomic order. An order which possess an indecent, violent and hidden underside, of which everyone unconsciously becomes an inextricable participant.
Having cut herself off from society, Celine then begins to identify with the marginalised and disenfranchised. Eventually she meets a group of downtrodden Arabs, a subset of whom are Islamic extremists. The group's leader engages Celine in discussions on faith, god and religious action.
It is here where the film begins to veer away from Bresson's message in "The Devil, Probably". Whilst Bresson's hero, a young kid called Charlie, rejects action outright, accepting his own impotency and making the ethical choice to cease participating in a late-capitalist (the "Devil" of the title) world which he can no longer support and which he knows cannot be changed through revolution, religion or even politics, Celine rejects her life of asceticism in favour for radical action, or more specifically, violent terrorism.
The message here is that inaction and isolated morality is no morality at all, that Celine must align action to her faith. In this regard she helps detonate a bomb, but this act scars her deeply; she views it as an unconscionable act. Celine is thus caught in a Catch-22 situation, in which participation, radical non-participation and radical-action are all seen to be unethical. Celine thus decides to commit suicide, the "logic" which Bresson too eventually hits upon in "The Devil, Probably". In both cases, suicide is seen to be the only possible moral stance. One simply cannot conceive of anything else in a world that increasingly allows for no other future.
Dumont's film then ends with Celine walking toward a lake, the site of numerous Bressonian suicides. "I love you," the teary eyed girl tells God, "but you won't be with a human creature." In other words, man, society, the divine and complete morality are all incompatible. Like the tortured girl in Bresson's "Mouchette", Celine thus decides to drown herself. Her suicide is thwarted, however, by a young man who rescues her. With this ending, none of the films themes are resolved and the audience is left wondering the significance of the man and his act of salvation. Is he Dumont's God, the divine potential within all of mankind, or is he the Devil Bresson sought to flee? His actions say one thing, his face another.
8/10 – Misperceived as a religious tract, "Hadewijch" is glacially slow and will appeal only to a very small audience. It is also wholly derivative of Bresson, Dumont failing to build upon, either philosophically or aesthetically, the work done by French directors (chiefly Bresson and Godard) in the 70s. Julie Sokolowski, who plays Celine, turns in a powerful performance.
Bruno Dumont directs "Hadewijch", the spiritual successor to Robert Bresson's "Mouchette" and "The Devil, Probably".
Like "The Devil, Probably", the film revolves around a teenager who has been born into a life of extreme wealth and privilege. Her name is Celine, and guilt has pushed her into cutting off all ties with the ruling class. Deciding to adopt a life of asceticism and abstinence, Celine joins a monastery. Unfortunately the local nuns do not take her newfound spirituality seriously. They eject her from their convent and push her back out into a world she abhors. Celine is distraught. She wants only to be close to God.
It's important to realise that Dumont has no interest in either religion or faith. His "God" is not a literal figurehead or deity, but rather a state of personal morality which his heroes often strive to live up to. The film's title, "Hadewijch", itself refers to a 13 century mystic who attempted to sublimate her complete being such that she became wholly pure like Christ. In "Hadewijch", this form of purification becomes Celine's rejection of both humanity and its socioeconomic order. An order which possess an indecent, violent and hidden underside, of which everyone unconsciously becomes an inextricable participant.
Having cut herself off from society, Celine then begins to identify with the marginalised and disenfranchised. Eventually she meets a group of downtrodden Arabs, a subset of whom are Islamic extremists. The group's leader engages Celine in discussions on faith, god and religious action.
It is here where the film begins to veer away from Bresson's message in "The Devil, Probably". Whilst Bresson's hero, a young kid called Charlie, rejects action outright, accepting his own impotency and making the ethical choice to cease participating in a late-capitalist (the "Devil" of the title) world which he can no longer support and which he knows cannot be changed through revolution, religion or even politics, Celine rejects her life of asceticism in favour for radical action, or more specifically, violent terrorism.
The message here is that inaction and isolated morality is no morality at all, that Celine must align action to her faith. In this regard she helps detonate a bomb, but this act scars her deeply; she views it as an unconscionable act. Celine is thus caught in a Catch-22 situation, in which participation, radical non-participation and radical-action are all seen to be unethical. Celine thus decides to commit suicide, the "logic" which Bresson too eventually hits upon in "The Devil, Probably". In both cases, suicide is seen to be the only possible moral stance. One simply cannot conceive of anything else in a world that increasingly allows for no other future.
Dumont's film then ends with Celine walking toward a lake, the site of numerous Bressonian suicides. "I love you," the teary eyed girl tells God, "but you won't be with a human creature." In other words, man, society, the divine and complete morality are all incompatible. Like the tortured girl in Bresson's "Mouchette", Celine thus decides to drown herself. Her suicide is thwarted, however, by a young man who rescues her. With this ending, none of the films themes are resolved and the audience is left wondering the significance of the man and his act of salvation. Is he Dumont's God, the divine potential within all of mankind, or is he the Devil Bresson sought to flee? His actions say one thing, his face another.
8/10 – Misperceived as a religious tract, "Hadewijch" is glacially slow and will appeal only to a very small audience. It is also wholly derivative of Bresson, Dumont failing to build upon, either philosophically or aesthetically, the work done by French directors (chiefly Bresson and Godard) in the 70s. Julie Sokolowski, who plays Celine, turns in a powerful performance.
There are no innocents in a democracy where people vote.
lastliberal-853-25370826 November 2011
Religious experience is not always neat. Unless you are a fundamentalist, you often travel many and diverse roads to find God. Celine (Julie Sokolowski), also known as Hadewijch, is in a convent at the beginning, but is kicked out for not following the rules. She is too intense for the other nuns.
For reference, there really was a poet and mystic in the 13th Century with the name Hadewijch, and there is some similarity to Celine.
After returning to Paris, she befriends Yassine (Yassine Salime), a Muslim terrorist. A Christian fanatic and Muslim fanatics; quite a combination. But, Yassine's brother Nassir (Karl Sarafidis) studies the Quaran, and I found it interesting that he is able to comfort Celine when she has troubles. Nassir seeks God, just as Celine does, but in a different way. He looks at God as a sword to fight injustice.
A former philosophy teacher, Director Bruno Dumont does not lead us to a neat resolution of Celine's problems. His ending is cloaked in ambiguity. Does she move closer to God, or has she given up on salvation. He's not telling, and it is left up to you to decide. Good luck with that.
For reference, there really was a poet and mystic in the 13th Century with the name Hadewijch, and there is some similarity to Celine.
After returning to Paris, she befriends Yassine (Yassine Salime), a Muslim terrorist. A Christian fanatic and Muslim fanatics; quite a combination. But, Yassine's brother Nassir (Karl Sarafidis) studies the Quaran, and I found it interesting that he is able to comfort Celine when she has troubles. Nassir seeks God, just as Celine does, but in a different way. He looks at God as a sword to fight injustice.
A former philosophy teacher, Director Bruno Dumont does not lead us to a neat resolution of Celine's problems. His ending is cloaked in ambiguity. Does she move closer to God, or has she given up on salvation. He's not telling, and it is left up to you to decide. Good luck with that.
How to live. With God.
regahsof12 November 2011
Warning: Spoilers
In its opening scene we are introduced to the film's main character, where we witness her at her familiar place, her place of "escape", her location, among others, of communing with God; she returns here at her most broken moments, notably so in one of the film's powerful closing scenes. Celine's quest is one of how to live "avec Dieu" - with God. A student of theology at a local convent, Celine is instructed that life in the world would offer better opportunities to live out her faith than the nunnery since her behavior here is seen as too ascetic. "The convent door will not be barred to you," are some final words from the Mother before Celine departs for holiday, allowing for the possibility of her return. From here, Celine encounters the dynamics of friendship and the potentially deadly reality of Islamic fundamentalism. We are treated to the spiritual depth of our main character and find that she is willing to push her faith to the limits in order to try and live - with God.
The God Who Wasn't There
dharmendrasingh27 April 2012
Told that she is too hardcore, adolescent nun Celine Hadewijch is expelled from her Antwerp convent and released back in to the world, where her desires can be provoked and thus her love for God truly tested.
On Paris' mean streets she meets Yassine, a French Muslim, whose performance I will describe as nonsensical, nervous and numb. The pair meet now and then to partake in teenage thrills, like illegal moped riding. She tells him that she is happy to be friends but nothing more, as her vow to God forces her to remain celibate.
Her love test arrives when she is introduced to Yassine's older brother, a mole-faced terrorist who masquerades as an innocent preacher. He gives poisonous religious seminars in the back of a kebab shop (that'll put you off fish and chips) to perfect terrorist bait: ignorant poor people.
Celine is neither poor or ignorant, but is nonetheless seduced. A dark cloud descends right at the point where she accepts – what? Conversion to Islam? A terrorist assignment? It is left open for interpretation, just like any religious text.
The line 'Abstinence is the idea, not martyrdom' uttered by the Sister Superior in response to Celine's behaviour got me thinking. Has she been forced into religion through neglect from her family? Is her devotion a mask for her insecurity? Or does she suffer because it is man she desires, not God, and cannot forgive herself for not being able to suppress her (God-given) nature?
The interesting part of the film focuses on Celine's personal quest for earthly unity with God, which she knows is unattainable, but pursues for the occasional closeness she feels to Him. Frustratingly this story is shelved in favour of exposing the subtle nature of extremism. My dissatisfaction lay in the misalignment of the two narratives.
www.moseleyb13.com
On Paris' mean streets she meets Yassine, a French Muslim, whose performance I will describe as nonsensical, nervous and numb. The pair meet now and then to partake in teenage thrills, like illegal moped riding. She tells him that she is happy to be friends but nothing more, as her vow to God forces her to remain celibate.
Her love test arrives when she is introduced to Yassine's older brother, a mole-faced terrorist who masquerades as an innocent preacher. He gives poisonous religious seminars in the back of a kebab shop (that'll put you off fish and chips) to perfect terrorist bait: ignorant poor people.
Celine is neither poor or ignorant, but is nonetheless seduced. A dark cloud descends right at the point where she accepts – what? Conversion to Islam? A terrorist assignment? It is left open for interpretation, just like any religious text.
The line 'Abstinence is the idea, not martyrdom' uttered by the Sister Superior in response to Celine's behaviour got me thinking. Has she been forced into religion through neglect from her family? Is her devotion a mask for her insecurity? Or does she suffer because it is man she desires, not God, and cannot forgive herself for not being able to suppress her (God-given) nature?
The interesting part of the film focuses on Celine's personal quest for earthly unity with God, which she knows is unattainable, but pursues for the occasional closeness she feels to Him. Frustratingly this story is shelved in favour of exposing the subtle nature of extremism. My dissatisfaction lay in the misalignment of the two narratives.
www.moseleyb13.com
Stunted acting, tedious
hanwen-891-5799287 November 2010
Warning: Spoilers
I can't concur with some the praise on this movie.
The film is very drawn out: some scenes just take forever without anything happening: no tension, no arcs. Just still images for minutes on end.
There is no dialog or character interaction in this film. Just actors stuttering out their words.
Overdone symbolism: a suburb flat courtyard with bushes in the shape of a cross? All of a sudden Celine gets hit by a ray of light in the middle of the countryside? The savior who is a workman?
The plot does not make sense: why does she need to go to the middle east?
I could not believe the film: the character's religiousness does not make sense, and her wordless approximation into the Muslim group is hardly credible.
The film is very drawn out: some scenes just take forever without anything happening: no tension, no arcs. Just still images for minutes on end.
There is no dialog or character interaction in this film. Just actors stuttering out their words.
Overdone symbolism: a suburb flat courtyard with bushes in the shape of a cross? All of a sudden Celine gets hit by a ray of light in the middle of the countryside? The savior who is a workman?
The plot does not make sense: why does she need to go to the middle east?
I could not believe the film: the character's religiousness does not make sense, and her wordless approximation into the Muslim group is hardly credible.
Slow and Explosive
JohnDeSando4 February 2011
Warning: Spoilers
"Youth is wholly experimental." Robert Louis Stevenson
Celine (Julie Sokolowski) identifies with the mystic Hadewijch so much so that she assumes her name at one point in this brooding drama by Bruno Dumont. Like the historical Hadewijch, Celine gives up all earthly pleasure to follow Christ, whom she deems her lover. So no young men may apply although she is generous with her time when they are around.
Celine, 20 and a virgin, bears some resemblance to Poppy in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, a dangerously open young woman, naïve some would call her. Celine has left the convent to find her vocation again, so disobedient and distant she has become. As her superior rightly determines, Celine needs to leave to experience life.
She does so by hanging with young Islamists outside Paris (she has wealthy parents in Paris, father a cabinet minister) and eventually coming to terms with her longing for Christ and her need for physical love. Director Dumont is a disciple of Robert Bresson and other directors like Antonioni, who emphasize the moral implications of films.
Besides reconciling her need for Christ with the physical world (she does not want a boyfriend because she is devoted to Christ), she must face the subtle seething of anger that results in terrorism: Her Islamist relationships, while providing her introduction to contemporary youth culture, can hide anger that eventually explodes.
Patience is required for this French subtitled drama—Dumont lingers with close-ups far longer than American directors would dare. But the payoff for lingering with him is rich characterization and a feeling that you have lived the experience, as Celine has.
Celine (Julie Sokolowski) identifies with the mystic Hadewijch so much so that she assumes her name at one point in this brooding drama by Bruno Dumont. Like the historical Hadewijch, Celine gives up all earthly pleasure to follow Christ, whom she deems her lover. So no young men may apply although she is generous with her time when they are around.
Celine, 20 and a virgin, bears some resemblance to Poppy in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, a dangerously open young woman, naïve some would call her. Celine has left the convent to find her vocation again, so disobedient and distant she has become. As her superior rightly determines, Celine needs to leave to experience life.
She does so by hanging with young Islamists outside Paris (she has wealthy parents in Paris, father a cabinet minister) and eventually coming to terms with her longing for Christ and her need for physical love. Director Dumont is a disciple of Robert Bresson and other directors like Antonioni, who emphasize the moral implications of films.
Besides reconciling her need for Christ with the physical world (she does not want a boyfriend because she is devoted to Christ), she must face the subtle seething of anger that results in terrorism: Her Islamist relationships, while providing her introduction to contemporary youth culture, can hide anger that eventually explodes.
Patience is required for this French subtitled drama—Dumont lingers with close-ups far longer than American directors would dare. But the payoff for lingering with him is rich characterization and a feeling that you have lived the experience, as Celine has.
Full of gaping plot holes that render the movie pointless
starrychloe12 October 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Saw this movie at the NY Film Festival. It was an OK movie until Celine appeared unharmed after the bomb explosion, which opens a gaping plot hole and begs the question, "why did the terrorists need her in the first place if all they were going to do it plant a bomb?" All throughout the movie, it was hinting that she would be a suicide bomber, yet after they got on the train together, and the bomb exploded, yet she survived, it rendered the entire movie completely pointless! Any terrorist could plant a bomb, and did not need her! I felt so angry like a part of my life has been wasted. This movie could have been so much more, yet the director did not have the guts to take more chances and did not even test his script or film before showing the finished product! This renders him incompetent. How did the police know to question Celine, but they did not arrest her? Why did she go back to the convent? Why were the nuns calling her Hadewijch if that was the Muslim name she took with Nassir? How did she get brainwashed between one scene to the next? The "thrash accordion" music was funny, intentionally or not. What kind of a thrash band has a saxophone and plays off key, let alone accordion? The guy with the guitar was in the back. The movie could have been so much better, the cinematography was great, the acting OK, the plot could have been more solid. The director needs to re-shoot most of the ending. The Christ-like figure in the end who saves her is a nice touch. Jesus was a carpenter; this worker guy is a stone layer. The theme of the movie is "Christ is all around you", and the "invisible", and yet she passes him throughout the movie without noticing him at all. She finally found her true love who saved her from herself. I don't know how the director will include that when she blows herself up, but that's for him to figure out when he fixes his film. He needed to take bigger chances to get a better film out of this.
In the name of Love
jon141018 October 2015
Celine is a young novitiate nun who is sent out of the nunnery by her Mother Superior because she is too full of self-love, is too extremist, mistakes abstinence for martyrdom, she needs to test her faith in the real world. Everything she goes through is an attempt to get closer to God. Her novitiate name is Hadewijch, after the 13th century mystic. She's seen at home in the Ile Saint Loue, in a lavish dwelling in modern day Paris with her dog, lounging about or strolling through the corridors and rooms of her affluent parent's, her father a minister, her mother detached, Celine seems alienated. She meets Yassine, a young street thief from the projects, who takes her to a punk concert and realizes she's not interested in sex with him. She pledges herself to Christ and has the mystic's desire to draw closer to His body. Yassine thinks(rightly?)she's nuts, being the only normal person(and very funny)in the story. When she puts her head on his shoulder, he asks does she want love? Dumont does not explore her character: how she became so religious, the roots of her antagonism with her father.Celine is infatuated with God.
She attends a church where Bach is being played by a quartet and is uplifted by it. Sokolowski's face filled with an inner radiance.Yassine breaks the law, steals a motor-bike and goes through red lights with Celine on the back. He introduces her to his older brother Nassir, who is a devout Muslim, and gives talks in the back of a kebab shop about Islamic belief. He can't understand why she suffers for the 'love' of God, she 'must act if you have faith...continue the creator's work'. He says 'innocence' doesn't exist in a democracy, where people vote but take no responsibility. God is a 'sword for truth and justice'. He takes her to an Arabic country to see the humiliation inflicted. She meets a group of terrorists. She declares herself 'with' Nassir, saying she's 'ready' to fight the cause as a way of getting closer to God. We are given to understand she plants a bomb in Paris. There is a street explosion, she travels below on a tube train with Nassir. We take it she was the 'chosen' one. Police go to the convent to ask her questions, but she escapes, pursued by the demons of self-doubt, in the absence of God.
Celine torments herself in her search for God. Julie Sokolowski embodies the ingenue otherworldliness and childlike candour of Celine, with a wan-faced pallor, a bodily awkwardness, suggesting her vulnerability. Her fear that she has paid too high a price, feeling no closer to God, for her actions. Dumont's camera is usually at head height and fairly close up, moving through landscapes in long shots. David, a shirtless Mason and convict on parole who has been working in the convent grounds, comes to play a major part in Celine's salvation as a form of embodied grace. In a world without God there is still the need for the sacred and the spiritual. Dumont shows various forms of fanaticism merging. God is in the humanity of our ordinary, modern world. Dumont takes us on a journey with Celine, the film as mystical act, a poem not to be interpreted at face value, with surrealistic ellipses and lacunae, reason breaking down, we take things on faith. Dumont makes us empathise with Celine. The ending is a problem, instead of signing off with an act of terrorism, Dumont brings in a miraculous climax, the coda a mystery of love, to send you out the door with too many questions in your head. Disturbing, haunting, cathartic.
She attends a church where Bach is being played by a quartet and is uplifted by it. Sokolowski's face filled with an inner radiance.Yassine breaks the law, steals a motor-bike and goes through red lights with Celine on the back. He introduces her to his older brother Nassir, who is a devout Muslim, and gives talks in the back of a kebab shop about Islamic belief. He can't understand why she suffers for the 'love' of God, she 'must act if you have faith...continue the creator's work'. He says 'innocence' doesn't exist in a democracy, where people vote but take no responsibility. God is a 'sword for truth and justice'. He takes her to an Arabic country to see the humiliation inflicted. She meets a group of terrorists. She declares herself 'with' Nassir, saying she's 'ready' to fight the cause as a way of getting closer to God. We are given to understand she plants a bomb in Paris. There is a street explosion, she travels below on a tube train with Nassir. We take it she was the 'chosen' one. Police go to the convent to ask her questions, but she escapes, pursued by the demons of self-doubt, in the absence of God.
Celine torments herself in her search for God. Julie Sokolowski embodies the ingenue otherworldliness and childlike candour of Celine, with a wan-faced pallor, a bodily awkwardness, suggesting her vulnerability. Her fear that she has paid too high a price, feeling no closer to God, for her actions. Dumont's camera is usually at head height and fairly close up, moving through landscapes in long shots. David, a shirtless Mason and convict on parole who has been working in the convent grounds, comes to play a major part in Celine's salvation as a form of embodied grace. In a world without God there is still the need for the sacred and the spiritual. Dumont shows various forms of fanaticism merging. God is in the humanity of our ordinary, modern world. Dumont takes us on a journey with Celine, the film as mystical act, a poem not to be interpreted at face value, with surrealistic ellipses and lacunae, reason breaking down, we take things on faith. Dumont makes us empathise with Celine. The ending is a problem, instead of signing off with an act of terrorism, Dumont brings in a miraculous climax, the coda a mystery of love, to send you out the door with too many questions in your head. Disturbing, haunting, cathartic.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
