Lourdes
Apr 02 - Apr 08, 2010
(Jessica Hausner, Austria/France/Germany, 2009, 35mm, 96 min)
Seattle Premiere
Isolated, wheelchair-bound Christine (Sylvie Testud) wants a way to meet people, so she pretends to be pious to take advantage of opportunities for travel with pilgrimage groups. When she takes a transformative journey to Lourdes, the "Disneyland of miracles," Christine gets plenty of opportunities for such, as she awkwardly makes the acquaintance of fellow miracle seekers, apathetic church volunteers and many others across the religious spectrum. The film’s focus, however, isn’t so much religion, but competing human capacities for openness and jealousy, and our ultimate underlying fragility. Through all this, Christine exudes charisma, even through her very socially limited shell.
"[An] intelligent, rigorously thoughtful, somewhat sly film...[Director] Jessica Hausner wants to explore the mysteries of life, not its certainties." -NY Times
“Sylvie Testud, 38, the French Meryl Streep (even better?), commits fully to Christine’s internal process, a performance of enormous physical control and economy.” —Time Out New York
