MOVIE REVIEW
Lourdes (2009)
Palisades Tartan
History has proven Catholicism to be the most cinematic of the Christian denominations. Drawing on a wealth of ornate iconography and millennia of artistic traditions/ceremonial pomp and circumstance, its practice incorporates sights, symbols and colors of remarkable visual beauty. There was, therefore, arresting potential for Jessica Hausner’s very Catholic new film “Lourdes.”
It depicts a mass pilgrimage to the mystical town in the south of France, said to be the site of repeated apparitions of the Virgin Mary. It centers on a busload of patients and workers from a Catholic hospital, who arrive in search of various forms of healing. Principal among them is Christine (Sylvie Testud), a nearly-mute paraplegic, content to look on at the righteous blur that surrounds her.