Review of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) by Miles A — 12 May 2009

This is truly an underrated masterpiece, sure the movie has claims of being inaccurate what with Jeanne's sister being raped and murdered and dressing as a man before she visited the dauphin of france, Charles VII not after, but nevertheless this adds to the cinematic aspect of the movie and the performances here are flawless.

There is this scene where Jeanne is looking at the Dauphin without saying anything with her face expression alone you can appreciate her superb acting. All the characters did not stray off their personalities either and only evolved which is good, like for example, Gilles, La Hire, and the royal bishop were loyal to Jeanne because they were amazed and at the same time amused by Jeanne's bravery and craziness.

The Dauphin of France only wanted to be coronated at the sacred place of Remin and once he achieved that through one bloody victory at the Tourelles by Jeanne and one lucky surrender at Orleans, he could care less about the rest of his people, selfish and arrogant but manupilative.

Awesome. The end is priceless when you find out Jeanne's true purpose as told to her by her conscience played coldly but superb by Dustin Hoffman. The burning scene lacked a dramatic ambient sadly since it was not as graphic or had epic music in the background, but this is just nitpicking, the film is a masterpiece!! Do not listen to people who bash this film because they saw an earlier version of Joan of Arc and stick to that, like Roger Ebert (old fart).