![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/226\/2012\/07\/Lourdes1.jpeg\" "\\"Lourdes1\\"")
<\/a>\n[This review was originally published at <\/span>Good Letters<\/span><\/a>, the blog hosted by Image<\/a><\/em>.]<\/span><\/p>\n
Caution: Lourdes<\/em> is a movie that may complicate your prayers. And prayer is complicated enough already, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n You\u2019re probably familiar with scriptures that advise us how to pray. I\u2019m embarrassed to admit it, but I sometimes read those passages as if they were the troubleshooting page of a user\u2019s manual, hoping I might find I\u2019ve overlooked a step, a secret, a keystroke that would provoke God\u2019s response.<\/p>\n \u201cIs it me?\u201d I ask myself. \u201cIs there a loose connection in my prayer wiring that will spark if I poke at it? Will good behavior improve my chances? Do I need to ask for this enough times that God knows I really mean it? If I remember to express gratitude for God\u2019s blessings, will that put him in a generous mood?\u201d<\/p>\n Childish questions, I know, but I suspect I\u2019m not the only one who\u2019s stumbled into them during God\u2019s long silences.<\/p>\n Lourdes<\/em> complicates matters by asking us if we\u2019re really serious. It asks us if we\u2019ve considered the possible consequences. It asks us how we\u2019ll recognize an answer from the Lord.<\/p>\n In this 2009 feature directed by Jessica Hausner, Sylvie Testud plays Christine, a wheelchair-bound woman who, nearly paralyzed by multiple sclerosis for years, has good reason to pray. She embarks on one \u201cprayer pilgrimage\u201d after another to destinations where healings are said to have occurred.<\/p>\n Will God touch her if she is bathed in the right water? If she stands on the right holy ground? If the right priest or nun prays over her? If the right prayer is said? If she lays awake, listening?<\/p>\n Christine may say very little out loud, but her face is as eloquent in prayer as any I\u2019ve seen since The Passion of Joan of Arc<\/em>. Her longing, her fears, her doubts\u2014she brings them all on a tour of Lourdes, a small French town where many have testified that the Virgin Mary healed them.<\/p>\n Organized by the Order of Malta\u2014an ancient Catholic order devoted to serving the elderly, disabled, homeless, and terminally ill\u2014the visit is overseen by a nurse named C\u00e9cile, a weary servant who seems more concerned with order and propriety than the possibility of grace. The best advice she can muster for a desperate pilgrim is to \u201caccept your fate with humility.\u201d Then she adds, \u201cThe suffering you bear can have a deep meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n Elina L\u00f6wensohn, best known for comical turns in Hal Hartley\u2019s films, powerfully conveys C\u00e9cile\u2019s spiritual turmoil\u2014the deep disillusionment that sometimes flares into rage.<\/p>\n One of C\u00e9cile\u2019s most fickle helpers, young Maria, is in charge of caring for Christine on this trip. But Maria (the new French \u201cIt Girl,\u201d L\u00e9a Seydoux of Midnight in Paris<\/em> and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol<\/em>) is so distracted by the effect of her own beauty on handsome ambulance officers that she often fails to meet Christine\u2019s needs, which are taxing and sometimes messy.<\/p>\n So it often falls to Christine\u2019s roommate, an elderly woman with afflictions of her own, to offer faithful friendship and tenderness. One of the old woman\u2019s afflictions might be na\u00efvet\u00e9\u2014she seems to be the ideal customer for the exploitative Lourdes marketplace. She buys cheap Virgin Mary statues, and even kneels at the one with the neon halo that stands outside a tacky souvenir shop. Her pilgrimage name-tag might as well say \u201cHoly Fool.\u201d<\/p>\n Hausner\u2019s imaginative images sharpen her film\u2019s questions. She frequently composes pictures in which our view is cut off by a wall, a pillar, or another pilgrim. We lean, trying to see the full picture of the scene, but like God\u2019s silence, these obstructions remain impenetrable, unmoving.<\/p>\n If this were a \u201cChristian movie\u201d about an afflicted woman who devoted herself to years of prayer, we\u2019d have no reason to suspect anything more than a miracle followed by rejoicing and the promise that her testimony would bring others to faith. Thank God\u2014Hausner\u2019s film gives us something more truthful, stubbornly refusing to deliver the feel-good conclusions that we\u2019ve come to expect from \u201cmiracle stories.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of these pilgrims experience wondrous things at Lourdes\u2026 events that confound doctors, priests, and pilgrims alike. And yet, Hausner\u2019s observant movie reveals more than the shock of the miraculous. It takes us beyond this, into the hard questions that a genuine miracle would raise.<\/p>\n What happens when a seeker finds? How much is actually resolved? Do doubts dissolve? Can a blessing, once granted, be withdrawn? Is it conditional? And what happens when a seeker, having received the blessing, becomes the object of other seekers\u2019 attention? What if a miracle for one sends many spiraling downward in jealous resentment?<\/p>\n Lourdes<\/em> may cause viewers to see miracle stories of the ancient past or the skeptical present in a whole new light. It may make us more reluctant to ask for miracles, or at least more aware of what we might be inviting.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s likely to send most moviegoers away more frustrated than pleased. Film critic Michael Leary nailed it when he called Lourdes<\/em> \u201ca theological Chinese finger trap.\u201d (He meant it as a compliment.)<\/p>\n Hausner reminds us how little we understand about the ways, thoughts, and purposes of God. Her film stands as a caution: Be careful what you ask for.<\/p>\n It also reminds us that even miracles cannot resolve the challenge of faith. Remember how quickly the fickle, self-centered masses turned against the same teacher who astonished them with wonders. A Gospel that sells itself on the promise that God answers prayers is no Gospel at all.<\/p>\n As I watch Lourdes<\/em> again, it isn\u2019t the wonder of pilgrims transformed\u2014by miracle or chance\u2014that moves me. Sure, it\u2019s exciting to see incurable diseases cured, but that isn\u2019t this movie\u2019s strongest evidence of some great grace at work in the world.<\/p>\n Rather, I\u2019m stunned by the sight of Frau Hartl, weary and unloved, praying in the glow of a cheap Virgin Mary lamp, and then selflessly bearing Christine\u2019s burdens when others fail her, asking nothing in return, even as the silence goes on swallowing her prayers.<\/p>\n \u2013<\/p>\n \u2013<\/p>\n [This review was originally published at <\/span>Good Letters<\/span><\/a>, the blog hosted by Image<\/a><\/em>.]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [This review was originally published at Good Letters, the blog hosted by Image.] Caution: Lourdes is a movie that may complicate your prayers. And prayer is complicated enough already, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1362,1361],"class_list":["post-79285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-reviews-journal","tag-jessica-hausner","tag-lourdes"],"yoast_head":"\nWriter, director \u2013 Jessica Hausner; director of photography \u2013 Martin Gschlacht; editor \u2013 Karina Ressler; production designer \u2013 Katharina W\u00f6ppermann; producer by Martin Gschlacht, Philippe Bober and Susanne Marian. Starring Sylvie Testud (Christine), Bruno Todeschini (Kuno), Elina L\u00f6wensohn (C\u00e9cile), Gerhard Liebmann (Pater Nigl), Gilette Barbier (Mme. Hartl), Hubsi Kramer (Herr Olivetti) and L\u00e9a Seydoux (Maria). Palisades Tartan. In French, with English subtitles. 1 hour 39 minutes. This film is not rated.<\/h6>\n