It means to be one with light eternal and yet remain on earth, to stand on altars with candles and incense, to return in prayers to all lips.

Mother Joan Of The Angels
Jerzy Kawalerowicz 1961 Poland
Starring: Lucyna Winnicka, Mieczyslaw Voit, Anna Ciepielewska, Franciszek Pieczka, Jerzy Kaczmarek


Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan Of The Angels was once described to me as "if Ingmar Bergman had directed The Devils" and, while that's not accurate or even particularly helpful a statement, the film does share two things with Ken Russell's work, namely its study of the case of Urbain Grandier and the fact that it's remarkable. The main difference is that, while Russell took Grandier himself as his subject, Kawalerowicz depicts the years following the priest's execution with the still possessed nuns facing an attempt at exorcism by the austere Father Jozef Suryn. Grandier still hangs heavy over the proceedings though, not least in the presence of his children who are now being cared for by a drunken elderly priest. As the film opens we see what looks like a bound man hanging upside down to a soundtrack of muttered oaths and we can't help but think that this could be Grandier midway through another bout of torture, at least until the body moves and the man stands up that is revealing that it was merely a person asleep and shot from above. The man then gives a startled look directly to the camera as if suddenly terrified until the subject of his panic is shown as nothing more than simple nature. The man is later revealed to be Father Jozef and the surroundings an inn he is staying in on his way to the convent. It's an electrifying opening, somehow frightening and innovative even though we don't see much, and what we do see isn't actually that malevolent. Another striking difference is that the 'possession' of the nuns here isn't portrayed as a result of repression and human weakness as in The Devils, instead it's an for the most part entirely legitimate situation with Joan almost immediately affecting an echoing rasp and crawling the walls while other nuns react to holy water by scattering and screeching like starving gulls. Some say their episodes are purely tricks acted out for shock value and Jozef is at first entirely sceptical of their authenticity but the townspeople are not so sure, even attracting interested outsiders who peep through windows and wield rumours like sharpened swords. For her part Joan is shockingly open, claiming to be occupied by no less than eight different demons, all in different parts of her body, and often speaking in their guise. The only untouched inhabitant is Sister Margaret who claims that the demons stay clear of her although quite why is left to our imagination, she appears completely innocent and at one point joins in with the chorus of a bawdy song making it seem like the innocent lullaby of a child but is equally at home with mead and dancing. Contrast is a big thing here, from the priest who doubts the demons' power but flogs himself in contrition with increasing fervour to the juxtaposition between the jet-black hair of Jozef and the pure white habit of Joan (not to mention the typical colours of good and evil being reversed) to the astonishing, ferociously intense face-off between Jozef and a Rabbi (both played with passion and sanctimony by the same actor, Mieczyslaw Voit, who is stunning throughout). Watched as part of a double-bill with Russell's work or as a separate production the film's power is undeniable but unlike The Devils it never veers into exploitation or wanton debauchery instead taking a more stringent, theological tone that's thrilling none the less. As bold a statement as it is I think it's the better of the two as well.

The only sin that can't be forgiven is despair.

Meteora
Spiros Stathoulopoulos 2012 Greece
Starring: Theo Alexander, Tamila Koulieva, Giorgos Karakantas, Dimitris Hristidis


Despite the financial crisis Greece has experienced in recent years its cinematic world seems to be going through a renaissance of sorts, much in the same way as the Romanian scene has of late. Of course the great Greek director Theo Angelopoulos made a number of intelligent, masterful films over the space of several decades but much of his work took place in other countries and featured foreign actors. This new renaissance as I see it started in 2009 with Yorgos Lanthimos' disturbing and genuinely bizarre Dogtooth and continued with Athina Rachel Tsangari's complex, brilliant Attenberg and Lanthimos' 2011 effort Alps. Pleasingly Spiros Stathoulopoulos' Meteora is totally different from any of those works and utterly innovative, mixing as it does beautiful landscapes, a sensitive arthouse love story and alarming animated sequences depicting mazes of blood and land cracking open to reveal visions of hell, and juxtaposing modern methods with traditional Orthodox sensibility. The narrative of priests or nuns being tempted by human desire and each other has often been played for titillation in a veritable banquet of soft-porn films but here, much as in last year's wonderful Diderot adaptation The Nun, it never feels exploitative and for the most part remains overtly non-sexual, instead concentrating on the irresistible connection between the lovers and the unavoidable guilt they feel. The repressive nature of religious discipline is a major theme, shown via ambiguous set-pieces such as the ever-present bandage on Urania's hand (is it merely a accidental injury or the aftereffects of an archaic form of penance?) and a net that Urania willingly climbs into before rising up the mountainside in it (a mode of torture or simply a means of getting about in the monolithic terrain? And, if the former, who is pulling its ropes?). It's a incredible, magnetic piece of work that, considering the contrasting styles and that leading man Theo Alexander is best known for playing Talbot in True Blood and Tamila Koulieva is a Russian TV actress, really shouldn't work but somehow it lingers in the mind and is never less than captivating. On the evidence of this and the aforementioned films it seems as if there's a dark undercurrent in modern Greek life that has resulted in a deep strangeness but, as ever, strangeness and undercurrents make for awe-inspiring cinema.

Herbs from beneath the gallows.

Day Of Wrath
Carl Theodor Dreyer 1943 Denmark
Starring: Lisbeth Movin, Thorkild Roose, Preben Lerdorff Rye, Sigrid Neiiendam, Anna Svierkier

Several years ago I met a young woman who I felt an instant attraction to, not 'love at first sight' or anything so clichéd but just a sort of magnetism that I couldn't ignore. It wasn't that she was particularly beautiful or even particularly noticeable but there was something drawing me to her. For lack of a better term it was as if I recognised her, although quite how when I'd never encountered her before in my life was beyond me. As it turns out though this wasn't as original a thought as it seemed to me at the time because, as ever, one of cinema's greats got there 60 years before me. In Day Of Wrath, Carl Theodor Dreyer's drama of witch-burning, sexual liberation and religious tyranny, Anne, the young wife of a priest, meets her stepson Martin (actually older than she is) for the first time and she's struck in the exact same way as I was, a feeling that's summed up perfectly with the phrase "I've seen your face". Right from the start we can tell that their relationship isn't going to end well but, regardless, they can't disregard each other. It's one that changes Anne, giving her a confidence and a happiness that she's never experienced and signposting her eventual denouncement almost as much as the image of her face behind the bar-like frames of a window. Late in the film (in an astonishingly intense scene) she practically seals her fate when she responds to her anguished husband's question of whether she is happy in their marriage by admitting that she has never loved him and berating him for his motives. Dreyer however never loses sight of his sympathy for both parties even though we've already seen Absalon take part in the torture of an elderly woman accused of witchcraft despite his doubt of her guilt (he's apparently more comfortable with her dead and out of the way than alive and potentially damaging to his reputation) then assemble a group of choirboys to sing hymns as she is flung into the flames. Still, perhaps the oddest thing about the film is its admittance of the supernatural. Despite being pretty plain about the fact that most of the accused aren't witches we're told early on that Anne's mother genuinely was a witch by a character shown as good and otherwise wholly sensible and that Absalon lied and spared her from death so he could marry Anne. It's not hard to see which Dreyer portrays as the worst crime. Later, it's implied that Anne may have similar powers. At one point her mother's ability to 'call the dead and alive alike' is discussed and seconds later Anne appears to call Martin silently and he is immediately by her side. Similarly, Absalon's mother is shown as a negative character from the start - even her face with its bags under her eyes and nose like a ripe plum never rises beyond disapproval - but her worst crime seems to be being a victim of the patriarchal society of 1623. The Old Testament also hangs heavy over the film; even when an accused woman hides in a pig pen the atmosphere has been so pious that we can't help but think of Leviticus 18:23 with its 'Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto'. It's a side that's never explored or even alluded to any further but it's still there. Many have labelled the portrait of witch-hunts in the film as an allegory of the Nazi Party's treatment of Denmark but for me it strikes as more easily comparable to the 'Red Scare' that started after the first world war and morphed into the McCarthy trials of the 1950's where many prominent people were accused of Communism and promptly blacklisted from business and basically ruined without much in the way of evidence other than having liberal leanings. It's a frightening, deeply moving depiction of religious totalitarianism with stunning shadowy cinematography reminiscent of the German expressionist era and one that makes me want to explore Dreyer's long career further, especially since he represents a bit of a gap in my viewing history.