{"id":727,"date":"2010-03-27T18:05:27","date_gmt":"2010-03-27T17:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/blog\/?p=727"},"modified":"2016-01-24T18:16:14","modified_gmt":"2016-01-24T17:16:14","slug":"lourdes-dir-jessica-hausner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=727","title":{"rendered":"<em>Lourdes<\/em> (2009), dir. Jessica Hausner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The strapline for Jessica Hausner\u2019s wonderful <i>Lourdes<\/i> is \u2018Nothing tests faith more than a miracle\u2019.\u00a0 The other issue that\u2019s central to the film is the deeply human \u2018Why me?\u2019.<\/p>\n<p><i>Lourdes<\/i> is set among a tour party to the shrine organised by the Order of Malta. It centres on Christine who suffers from multiple schlerosis;\u00a0 her hands permanently clenched, her upper and lower limbs not functioning.\u00a0 Christine, played with astonishing restraint and power by Sylvie Testud, is totally dependent on others, and goes on pilgrimages essentially because \u2018It\u2019s the only way I get out\u2019. Her first reaction to <i>Lourdes<\/i> is \u2018It\u2019s a bit touristy\u2019; she prefers the more cultural trips. Christine\u2019s first dependence is on a flighty young female nurse whoselou main interest is in the male nurses.\u00a0 Christine is then taken over by the older, and colder, Madame Hartl, who\u2019s given to kneeling to pray in front of the huge Virgin Mary with its neon halo in the hotel lobby, and who wheels Christine about while clutching a plaster statue of the Holy Mother.<\/p>\n<p>The group is run by the frosty, pinched Cecile who believes in order and piety in all things, and, unsurprisingly, has her own secret. And that is the slight problem with this film, aside from Christine, to whose portrayal Testud brings considerable subtlety and real charisma, the other characters can seem rather caricatured.\u00a0 Not only Madame Hartl (Gilette Barbier), and Cecile (Eline Lowensohn), but the flighty young nurses, and the two older women who act as a small Greek chorus that asks the priest in charge the awkward questions, are a little underwritten.\u00a0 But there is also a gripping silence about the film; dialogue is sparing and necessary, and Cecile\u2019s is the only name given in the whole film.<\/p>\n<p>However, <i>Lourdes<\/i> doesn\u2019t reach for easy, sceptical irony.\u00a0 There\u2019s plenty of sardonic wit, and the full extent of Catholic kitsch is presented.\u00a0 But Hausner carefully points to the way in which the shrine works hard to suggest that physical healing is only ever a small part of any pilgrimage there.\u00a0 Every one leaves <i>Lourdes<\/i> with something, but Hausner also suggests that whatever healing might mean, it might only ever be a false dawn.\u00a0 The final cringe-making scene of a karaoke party with the priest dad-dancing with the nuns, and the \u2018able-bodied\u2019 confronting their own embarrassments suggests that what is unresolved might possibly stay that way.\u00a0 Christine, who has asked \u2018why me\u2019 at the start of the film, is forced to ask the same question at the end!<\/p>\n<p><i>Lourdes<\/i> is great film making, darkly detailed and with a pitch-perfect beauty.<\/p>\n<p>Ian Pople<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The strapline for Jessica Hausner\u2019s wonderful Lourdes is \u2018Nothing tests faith more than a miracle\u2019.\u00a0 The other issue that\u2019s central to the film is the deeply human \u2018Why me?\u2019. Lourdes is set among a tour party to the shrine organised by the Order of Malta. It centres on Christine who suffers from multiple schlerosis;\u00a0 her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[14,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.2.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lourdes (2009), dir. Jessica Hausner - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=727\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lourdes (2009), dir. Jessica Hausner - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The strapline for Jessica Hausner\u2019s wonderful Lourdes is \u2018Nothing tests faith more than a miracle\u2019.\u00a0 The other issue that\u2019s central to the film is the deeply human \u2018Why me?\u2019. Lourdes is set among a tour party to the shrine organised by the Order of Malta. 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