My Review of The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) directed by Robert Bresson

 I can't remember the exact day I watched this film for the first time. All I remember was that it was late at night I was thinking of going to bed and I started doing some last minute channel surfing on the TV, when I ended-up on the TCM channel just as this movie was starting. An hour later I was stunned by what I had seen. I was a Joan of Arc fan for the next 24 hours and a Robert Bresson fan for life.

This movie was my introduction to Robert Bresson and a form of art film I call "grown folk cinema." It was clear that Bresson is not messing around with the standard theatrics of most movies and went for a minimal approach to how his "models" (his name for the actors in his films) went about their roles. There is a quiet aggression that is spell-binding to watch. The script for the movie is adapted directly from the transcript of the actual trial of Joan of Arc as well as her posthumous rehabilitation trial 25 years later after the 100 Years War had turned decisively in favor of France. Along with the obvious religious themes of the movie, this film is a study judicial corruption and kangaroo courts/show trials; this film came on the eve of the Women's Liberation Movement in the West and right after France lost the Algerian War (literally 2 months, a lot of themes of this movie about the military's over-reach had real-life parallels in that war). The memorable performance of Florence Delay really draws you into the movie and the character of Joan and makes you really consider the person who could be a teenager and yet command an army.

I can't say whether this movie is the best introduction to the films of Robert Bresson, but it was my introduction to and it is the shortest of his major films. This film shows you how am unjust criminal justice system or an overzealous wartime tribunal acts regarding the rights of anyone they insist on putting to death. This film revealed to me a whole new way of films. Also, note that the only "music" heard in the film are drum and horns at the beginning and drum rolls at the end.