User Reviews

Christine (Sylvie Testud) is wheelchair-bound, and is suffering from multiple sclerosis. She travels to the pilgrimage site of Lourdes in the Pyrenees Mountains to both escape from her isolation, and seek some kind of answers to her situation. Compared to the other pilgrims, Christine has little faith in God. Yet while she's there, she miraculously gains controls of her limbs and she rises from her wheelchair. The church are quick to jump on it as a 'miracle', but seek medical advice in order to confirm this.

The film never takes a stance in regards to its attitude to either religion or spirituality, to the point where the 'miracle' that takes place takes a backseat. This is a film that is more concerned with its characters' plight, and how the people around Christine react to the possible miracle that they witness. It does, if anything, portray the Catholic faith in a positive light. The priest seeks all the medical advice he can get before he will believe it as a miracle, and the helpers at Lourdes (minus one rather self-involved girl) are shown to have genuine love for the work they do, and its importance. But it does also show the slightly ridiculous side, as the Church will only recognise it as an 'official' miracle if it ticks certain boxes.

it does not linger on the idea of faith, as previously stated, but instead how it corrupts, bewilders, and enchants the people around Christine. Some of the pilgrims talk bitterly between themselves and doubt her sincerity, to the point where they begin to dismiss the idea of miracles, which is the very thing that they went to Lourdes to experience. One of the male helpers initially shows an interest in Christine, glancing and smiling at her every now and then. Yet when she begins to walk again, he seems to almost completely fall for her, much to the jealousy of one of the female workers. It's a startling commentary on how humanity can be corrupted and influenced by the idea of religion.

Lourdes is a quiet, gentle and ponderous portrayal of a woman desperately seeking an answer to her illness and finding it in the last place she would expect. It doesn't force its ideas down your throat, but instead it lets it flow across the small interactions and expressions of its characters. The pace may sometimes come to a standstill, but this is a richly rewarding experience from one of Austria's most exciting new directors.

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Forgive my ignorance of neither Lourdes or theology, without a Catholic background, to me the miracles sound hyperbolic and outlandish at first, but after watching the film, even though being an agnostic, some kind of insight surfaced upon my mind's eye that the miracle itself could be a fatal burden to whom it is granted, which is my very direct response, which I am not sure would be the prime aim of the director, for me, it does pique my curiosity definitely.

Due to the fact that the mystery has still been in a moot beyond any explanation by now, the third feature from Austrian director Jessica Hausner (whose previous film is a haunting ghost story - HOTEL 2004) cannily digresses the mythological topic of the epiphanic moment, instead, the film focuses directly on the individuals of the pilgrim group (thought from a restrained distance), the most noteworthy comes from their blunt reactions before/after the miraculous event, which unavoidably compass piety, expectation, sympathy versus selfishness, jealousy, gloating, envy and bitterness. As a matter of fact it is more like a discreet dissertation on a test of humanity, which literally and cruelly reveals the inconvenient truth that it is our soul needs to be cured.

What I truly commend here is the laconic shots, the full-blown palette and a calm stance which is pervasive throughout the entire movie,

all of which establish a sincere austerity and mercy to its views, plus the non-intrusion composition drastically enhances the solemnity and sacrality of its proposition

The female protagonist Sylvie Testud's performance is extraordinarily astute, despite of her word-deficient and gesture-limited role while the supporting group is also tellingly awesome, terse but impressive!

Lourdes is a famous Catholic shrine in France, visited by pilgrims from around the world seeking miraculous cures for serious medical conditions.

Christine(Sylvie Testud) is wheelchair bound due to multiple sclerosis. Although not deeply religious, she decides to try to be healed by divine intervention. After a few days, she slowly is able to get up and walk. Other visitors with much more faith than Christine have philosophical debates on the fairness of it all.

She meets a man while apparently making progress physically, but the budding romance fizzles quickly when the guy proves to be unable to accept her limitations.

A night view of the city with only the faithful holding up candles while Ave Maria plays in the background is simply breathtaking. I am not personally religious, but I grew up Catholic and can appreciate the beauty of the symbolism and message. Jessica Hausner does not preach to the audience at any point, but gives us the opportunity to make up our own minds about faith and belief in miracles. Lourdes is an interesting conversation starter and a good movie.

I am Roman Catholic. Lourdes is a blessed, mystical place. I hear. The story goes, the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette in a grotto near Lourdes several times. Word spread, a shrine was built, miracles occurred, all in this small community in the south of France. Now, millions travel to Lourdes every year, looking for intervention from St. Bernadette and the Blessed Mother. While I've never been there, I have been to shrines, like Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount-Royal in Montreal. The relics for sale and presence of the pilgrims are a little scary, but there was no denying the power of the place. So, I was very interested to see a pilgrimage from the perspective of a pilgrim in Lourdes, a movie playing at the Cleveland International Film Festival, this week. Christine is a young woman from France who has multiple sclerosis. She's lost control of her body from the neck down. But, her mind is vibrant, she seems to accept the help of nurse volunteers at Lourdes with a pleasant demeanor. She tells a priest, in confession, that she gets angry over her diagnosis and feels envious of able bodied people, like a nurse who is flirting with a man on the trip that she fancies. This is like a group tour, with a different activity each day: a hike through the grotto, a bath in the water, even an award at the end of the trip for the "Best Pilgrim." Christine's mother is with her on the trip. Their relationship is one of the things that bothered me in the movie. While her mother accepts the role of caregiver, they barely talk or interact, except in a very distant fashion. I didn't get that. A couple of the older volunteers hang together at night and discuss deep topics of faith and spirituality. Juxtapose that with Christine confessing to her nurse that she is not really a believer, she just goes on the pilgrimages because she can't really get out of the house for much else. When the inevitable miracle occurs, within the group, some are jealous, others are skeptical, others just wonder why some are chosen and others are not. Lourdes is a very quiet, very slow moving film. I guess I was hoping for more of an epiphany, but at the end, I wasn't at all sure what I was supposed to take away from it. I was interested but not satisfied. I give Lourdes a 7 out of 10.

Films about religion tend to be vociferous as they need to convince viewers about the importance and role of religion in their daily lives. The name of an important Italian film "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (Il Vangelo secondo Matteo) directed by Pasolini immediately comes to mind as it has been universally hailed as one of the best films about religion.As a film about religion,"Lourdes" does make a mark for itself as a different kind of religious film as it does not take the usual route of unnecessary commotion and hero worship.This has a lot to do with the fact that it appears more as a publicity film for religious pilgrimage.However,despite these good qualities Lourdes appears as a colossal failure as it fails to convey any kind of serious message about religion.Viewers do not know what the film wishes to convey as a large part of the film is devoted to show the pilgrimage site with occasional scenes of hilarity in which minor characters participate with all their might.A liberal viewer might take it casually but for serious people it could be a case of sacrilege.Much of the film features wooden acting by French actress Sylvie Testud.If past work is any indication of a director's talent then it can be said that Austrian director Jessica Hausner has made better films namely Lovely Rita and Hotel.With Lourdes,she has made a huge failure which is unable to stir viewers' emotions about the importance of religion in their lives.Lastly,the film's complete lack of seriousness is highlighted in scenes wherein some actors mock the very figures for which the pilgrimage is organized.

A girl with MS can't move her body, except for the face muscles. She goes to Lourdes, the place of miracles. She's not just tired of her life, she's of course also envious about life of others.

Usually, it's obvious there on the screen you shall look. Not here. Long takes, many extras, everybody make their moves and everybody is interesting, although you may forget them for a while, watching others.

Quietly, so many believable emotions are to be found here. Jealousy, slight passion, hopes, disappointments. And after a while you're not watching, you're among these pilgrims, and although you've never been in this environment, you recognize everything. And Sylvie Testud is superb.

Pros: 1. Léa Seydoux (Maria), Sylvie Testud (Christine), and Elina Löwensohn (Cécile) give fantastically rich performances. 2. The film highlights how people will use faith differently. Whether it be as a hobby, as a way of coping, or as a way-of-life. 3. The cinematography is almost perfect. Everything from the lighting, the framing, and the long impactful shots are just incredible. 4. Cécile collapsing on the floor is legitimately heartbreaking as even though before she was mostly stern and stoic, it was obvious that she cared for the patients. 5. Christine finding the ability to walk again is genuinely uplifting, and her reaction really helps to ground the "miracle" as she milks the newly-found attention after being ignored for awhile. It also rams home the ending with blunt force.

Cons: 1. Some of the scenes last a little too long. 2. The audio, at times, is distractingly out-of-sync.

This is a dreadful film. If it had been made in the 1960s, criticising the petty-mindedness of the bourgeoisie and the blame-the-victim attitude of Christianity, it would have been a fairly mediocre but worthwhile and important effort. But it was made in 2009, and the world has moved on, in some respects at least. I live a couple of hours from Lourdes, and people here in France simply don't talk and act as repressed (any more) as they do in the movie. The dialogue was incredibly stilted and full of clichés, as were the characterisations. Some people write that the movie comments on life and religion on many subtle ways. Other than showcasing, once again, the cruelty and incompetence of the Christian mindset towards those that suffer, I didn't see any deep meanings, subtlety or anything illuminating making it worthwhile sitting through all this. I mean, do we really have to listen, again, to people discussing that hoary old chestnut, of how God can be all powerful and all good, yet allows suffering in the world? Or the man walking away from the girl after she falls, how much more clichéd can you get? The film clearly is made with honesty and integrity, but sadly with a great lack of originality. It looks as if Hausner tried to make a film in the tradition of social realism, which is fair enough, but it's far inferior to many other movies in the genre, and her approach really is forty years out of date.

The photography and mise-en-scene are great but the characters lack depth (Testud's room mate for example), the acting is great considering what the skinny script offers them (Testud and Seydoux are remarkables) but lots of subplots are left unexploited

I didn't think the film was that rewarding, it drags a bit towards the end, and the film feels a bit pointless sometimes

The film doesn't know if it should be Christian, critical or ironic, the best parts are when the it's unjudgemenal and contemplative

In the end I don't think Catholics or Agnostics would really like that film very much, it's got a strong sense of aesthetics but lacks personality and determination

That was George Martin's description of Lennon and Maccartney's songwriting partnership: Maccartney provided the olive oil, and Lennon the vinegar. The balance is just as perfect in this movie, which manages to capture the temple of crass which is Lourdes, without ridiculing the faith that leads people to revere it. It is a quiet movie, with little dialogue, and frequent recurring motifs—religious services, visits to the grotto, Lourdes water in ghastly containers. The little cast of characters is superb, and there are no weak performances here.

If I had one criticism, it's that the movie is sometimes too subtle for its own good. Occasionally, I like to be told what I'm watching and why it's significant. Perhaps this is my own crudeness. Nevertheless a brilliant movie, that made me chuckle and yet moved me.

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.

Kinda like reading "Magic Mtn"; a long, sometimes dull, but ultimately worthwhile tour through institutional hell, the institutions in question, medicine in the Mann novel and the church in Jessica Hausner's film, made all the more horrendous in that they masquerade as "healing". Film loses a bit of energy, though, to say nothing of credibility, once Christine experiences her temporary "cure". At that point Hausner abandons her heretofore effective tone of serio comic reality for one of allegory and kind of allows her hatred of humanity to overwhelm her. Still, a most impressive film from a director whose work has up to now been unknown to me and whose other movies I will assiduously seek. Give it a B plus.