Summary
Lourdes is a remarkable psychological and social x-ray of the world around the famous religious complex in the Pyrenees, with that clinical precision so typical of Austrian cinema and with a delicate balance in which hints of irony always give way to respect and piety. The film achieves moments of an absolutely human, moving religiosity, such as I have rarely seen in a film.
Review:
Jessica Hausner's film follows Christine, a motor disabled person, during her journey through the famous tourist-religious complex around the Lourdes Grotto in the French Pyrenees.
Multiple dimensions and themes run through this film. On the one hand, there is a look at the disease, the relationship between the healthy and the sick and how she considers the Catholic religion to the sick and the concept of healing, put into the mouths of their own priests.
On the other hand, Lourdes paints a picture of that touristic-religious universe viewed with that clinical precision so typical of Austrian cinema, with a delicate balance in which hints of irony always give way to respect and piety. It is difficult at first to place oneself in that world of patients, companions, relatives, nuns, priests and volunteers of the Order of Malta (where each one fulfills a precise, transitory or permanent function), where a sociogram is drawn where solidarity intersects , misgivings, hope, desire, jealousy, envy, frustration and, of course, faith, in a setting that is enriched with real shots of masses and mass movements in which the film leans into the documentary . They all follow a kind of procession (with something of a way of the cross) scheduled and methodical, waiting for the miracle of healing to take place.
Why do the sick go to Lourdes? Christine answers that question early in the film, and not exactly from a pious place. Sylvie Testud remarkably puts the body to her character and her evolution, accompanied by Maria (Lea Seydoux, in a rather small role), the companion who embodies health.
As we had already seen in the also notable Little Joe, Hausner beautifully frames her scenes preferably in fixed and geometric planes. Supported by a wonderful use of Bach's music, Lourdes achieves moments of an absolutely human, moving religiosity, such as I have rarely seen in a film.
