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There are apparently two Joans. One was revealed by Roger Caratini, a prominent historian, mathematician, psychoanalyst, and author of Joan of Arc: from Domrémy to Orléans. He said, “She was, it seems, almost entirely the creation of France's desperate need for a patriotic mascot in the 19th century. The country wanted a hero, the myths of the revolution were altogether too bloody, and France more or less invented the story of its patron saint. The reality is, sadly, a little different. I'm very much afraid that precious little of what we French have been taught in school about Joan of Arc is true. Psychologically, her story is beautiful. It's the little girl who lives out her dreams to the end. But she really wasn't the heroine who saved France - just a human being with exceptional energy and self-belief.”

Director and co-screenwriter Luc Besson takes an approach that skirts both images of Joan: the mythical icon and the historical figure. He casts his then-wife Milla Jovovich in the title role, and supports her with Dustin Hoffman as her Conscience, Faye Dunaway as Yolande D'Aragon, the mother of The Dauphin, and John Malkovich as The Dauphin, to become Charles VII.

The Maid of Orléans begins her life during the Hundred Years War. She’s fully immersed in the dogma of the Catholic Church. As a preteen, she’s obsessed, insisting on giving confession on a daily basis. It’s almost as if she expects to be struck down at any moment and fears dying without absolution. It’s a dark time for the peoples of France. They are at war with the British and half the country has been invaded and occupied. Joan is traumatized at a young age when brutish British soldiers destroy her village, her home, and rape and kill her older sister (not necessarily in that order).

Joan may suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. That shock may have caused a psychic break. Whatever the cause, she sees visions, she hears voices. She comes to believe that it is her destiny to convey the will of God and save France, helping to cast out the invaders. She approaches The Dauphin (John Malkovich) in his court, transplanted away from the defeated Paris. She mysteriously finds him as he masquerades as a court nobleman until it can be determined that she’s not an assassin. (Based on The Dauphin’s less than subtle behavior, I don’t think her identifying him required divine intervention.) She promises to cast the British from French soil and convinces him to give her an army to command.

Her fervor and determination inspire the troops. She is credited with two bloody victories and even survives a serious wound. That she was thought by the British to have been killed and returned from the dead spooked the superstitious of six hundred years ago. When she confronts a third British force and begs them to leave so she does not have to destroy them, they turn and walk off the field of battle. Her victories ensure the coronation of The Dauphin, but as soon as he becomes Charles VII, he loses interest in war and prefers diplomacy instead. Joan has become an expensive liability. Her fiery end is well-known, but the circumstances perhaps less so. As portrayed in this film, they reek of French hypocrisy, Church duplicity, and vengeful British brutality.

I found interesting Besson’s approach of confronting the imprisoned Joan with a physical embodiment of her conscience to suggest less than divine explanations for her delusions; it’s a fascinating counterpoint to her psychology. Or was it intended to be a crisis of faith before the final immolation? I’ve always found Milla Jovovich to be an underrated actress, perhaps trapped by her roles in science fiction and horror. She portrays a fine emotional range and I was quite convinced of Joan’s borderline insanity. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, the production values admirable, and the pacing brisk.

That this nineteen-year-old woman was burned alive is a matter of historical record. Sadly, it would appear to have been just another excess of the Catholic Inquisition. Author Roger Caratini states, “Joan of Arc played no role, or at best only a very minor one, in the Hundred Years War. She was not the liberator of Orléans for the simple reason that the city was never besieged. And the English had nothing to do with her death. I'm afraid it was the Inquisition and the University of Paris that tried and sentenced her.” Of course, Joan was canonized five hundred years later. I’m sure that apology makes her feel much better.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1 is presented in a reasonably nice looking high definition transfer compressed with the AVC video CODEC. Alas, the bit rate is modest. To accommodate that bit rate, low pass filtering must have been applied (made obvious by the lack of definition in the leaves of trees) and there seems to have been edge enhancement applied (which has the unfortunate effect of visible halos on video transitions of high contrast). The result is that the transfer’s appearance looks slightly processed, an artificial electronic kind of processed. This robs the viewer of the illusion of film. Other aspects are quite good. Color is accurately conveyed based on the lush French forests and natural flesh tones. The video dynamic range is excellent, with neither black crush nor white blooming. However, deep blacks are inconsistent, sometimes becoming a very dark brown. The softness adversely affects finely grained textures and the halos adversely affect small object detail. A good but not great transfer.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track fares better than the video. Voices can sometimes have great in-the- room presence. The sound effects have a pleasant transparency, particularly the sounds of swords either being drawn or clashing together. The dramatic orchestral score by Eric Serra is presented with persuasive fidelity across a broad soundstage made wider with leaks into the surrounds. The surrounds are relatively active, from immersive rain to the cacophony of bloody hand-to-hand combat. Deep, sphincter-shaking bass is impressive during impacts of stone projectiles and the battering of thick doors and drawbridges.

French and Portuguese are available alternate languages presented in Dolby TrueHD; the other tracks are in Spanish and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1. The optional subtitles are in English SDH, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Korean, Thai, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Indonesian.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The only supplement on the disc is a BD promo (2:35, 1.85:1, HD). Not even a collection of HD trailers.

However, this is a BD Live enabled disc. Perhaps the goodies are hidden away on some remote server. Nope. All I found were a Music Video Editor and a collection of trailers in HD and SD.

The 158-minute film is organized as sixteen chapters.

Final Thoughts

An interesting approach to an icon’s life, Besson emphasizes the combat but also suggests a delusional young woman caught up in religious fervor and self-deception. Deviation from the historical is moot; taken as a drama, capturing Joan’s humanity and her regrets as she inspires her countrymen is compelling. The transfer is good but not exceptional, the audio is impressive, and the supplements are AWOL.