Lourdes
Director: Jessica Hausner
Year Released: 2009
Rating: 2.0
A woman with multiple sclerosis (Sylvie Testud) goes to Lourdes in France on holiday and ends up being miraculously cured by something: it's either fluke or act of God, and no one's sure if it's going to last. Ambiguous and coy, Hausner plays things down the middle the entire time through: her tongue is firmly buried in the back of her cheek when she makes sure to get in shots of the Souvenir Shop and of the plug-in Virgin Mary statue and tosses in glib, off-handed comments (usually about someone's disbelief at the possibility of spiritual intervention). With her not taking a basic stand on the issue - essentially, is there a possibility of a miracle or is Lourdes closer to Disneyland than shrine? - it's too ambiguous to resonate. At least Dreyer had conviction, and Bergman genuinely struggled with his own doubts....
