Lourdes

In Jessica Hausner's sly and observant new drama, Sylvie Testud gives an extraordinary performance as Christine, who is confined to a wheelchair by multiple sclerosis and has joined the masses of pilgrims who visit the Roman Catholic shrine in the foothills of the Pyrénées in southwestern France. It's a place synonymous with the existence of miracles, where the ill seek hope and comfort- even someone like Christine, who doesn't appear to be all that pious. Why is one person healed and not another? Filming on actual locations, Hausner shows the collective rituals of the pilgrimage, from meals to visits to the grotto and the baths, and the ways of God being unfathomable, the film focuses on human reactions to divine mysteries: hope, disappointment, jealousy, even anger. Thoughtful and enigmatic, Lourdes shows both the existence of faith in a benevolent and eternal God and also a reality characterized by the arbitrary and ephemeral. In French with English subtitles.With Elina Löwensohn, Bruno Todeschini, Léa Seydoux. Writer/Director: Jessica Hausner. (Austria/France 2009) 99 min.