Hadewijch (Sunday, December 26, 2010) (164)

Hadewijch is is film that I would like to quickly dismiss as a simple film about a girl who struggles with her deep and powerful faith in modern times, but it is actually much harder to deal with than that. This film, by the always challenging French director Bruno Dumont (who previously made the difficult films Humanité and Flanders) seems rather straightforward until you scrape the surface a tiny bit.

The title of the film comes from the name of the convent where the main character Céline is studying to become a nun, as well as a lesser known 13th century mystic poet who struggled with her transcendent devotion to god. Céline deals with a similar love of god, one that even her nun teachers don't totally understand.

The film mostly follows Céline, but also a young construction worker, David, who seems to go in and out of juvie every few months (or so he tells us). As the film opens, we see two old nuns discussing Céline and saying that her faith is too blind and too extreme that she doesn't really understand the meaning of the suffering she's putting her self through in the name of God. They send her back to the real world to experience more life and get her better prepared for life in the convent.

Back in Paris, she is the daughter of a super rich minister, living in one of the nicest apartments you've ever seen on Isle Saint Louis (not bad!). She has everything she wants. One day she meets a group of Muslim boys from the banlieue who begin flirting with her. She strikes up a friendship with one of them, Yassine, and goes to visit him in his project. There she meets his brother, Nassir, who is a Koran teacher and low-level zealot. They two become friends based on their love of God (of whatever name) and understanding of sacrifice.

There are long segments of this film where we see Céline watching religious services (watching musicians or praying) where not much happens. These parts are very slow and rather boring (with just close-ups of her face). Much of this film is rather overdone, such as when she begins working with Nassir. Still, the last scene helps to tie a lot of these disperate elements together well, so I forgive some of those problems.

Dumont does an interesting thing where he makes Céline's body always on display, even though she's not totally outwardly gorgeous. He sexualizes here a good amount, I think, showing her naked in one scene and then showing her nipples through her dresses in just about every other scene. At one point she says that she is so devoted to God that she doesn't like when men look at her sexually. At this point we realize have been looking at her sexually the whole time.

This film is about Holy Fools and True Believers. There is some fascinating stuff in it, but it never totally comes together all that perfectly. It almost feels like two movies (one with Céline in the convent and one with her in Paris) that don't totally connect. At times, Dumont is so elliptical with his narrative that big changes of direction are left out and leave us scratching our heads as to how we got there.

Sill, this is a beautiful looking movie with wonderful color saturation thoughout the cinematography (by Yves Cape... who seems to work with Dumont a lot). There are wonderful blues and greens and a soggy wetness that permeates the convent sections and makes it very intimate.

I wish this was a better film, because I think there's so much interesting stuff in it. Still, I think it's worth watching all the way through to see the fascinating ending.

Stars: 2.5 of 4