Wednesday, October 14, 2026
By Peter Hummers on September 17, 2026
My interest in the legend of Joan of Arc was stirred when I saw Jules Bastien-Lepage’s great modernist painting of Joan in New York (see it here). About Joan, French director Luc Besson (The Professional, The Fifth Element) made The Messenger as a sort of labor of love, but with no conclusions as to what actually happened. The critics didn’t like it, but his version of “Jeanne d’Arc” is a very entertaining watch.
“I’m nothing in all this—I’m just the messenger.” (Joan)
“She’s nuts!” (a French soldier)
Was Joan of Arc, or Jeanne d’Arc, who, legend has it, successfully fought the English invaders in the Hundred Years War, a saint? Or crazy? Or what?
Luc Besson’s The Messenger opens in 1412 in the French village of Domrémy during the Hundred Years’ War, where a young girl named Jeanne (Jane Valentine) is born into a France ravaged by English occupation. A religious child, she frequently confesses in church, and at age 13 experiences a divine vision during a brutal English raid on her village.
Now, “While the scriptwriter, Andrew Birkin, has said that he made sure the end result was far more historical than what director Luc Besson and distributor Sony had originally planned, and Birkin seems to have had good motives, the end result nevertheless bears little resemblance to the time period, people, or events in question.” (Allen Williamson)
Just sayin’. The movie is still hugely entertaining. I mean it’s Luc Besson! It actually reminds me of The Fifth Element at times.
Meanwhile, years later, in 1428, now a young woman (as portrayed by Besson’s bride Milla Jovovich, The Fifth Element) convinced of her mission from God to expel the English from France, Joan journeys to Chinon to meet the Dauphin, Charles VII (Hey! John Malkovich, Crossbones, Burn After Reading, enjoying himself a little), who is reluctant to claim his throne amid military defeats. To test her, Charles disguises himself, but Joan unerringly identifies him, describing visions of saints and angels instructing her to lead France to victory and crown him in Reims. Supported by Yolande of Aragon (Faye Dunaway, who looks a little like RoboCop), Charles grants her command of an army. The Church interrogates her about the visions, which she attributes to God, refusing to perform miracles but citing her safe passage through enemy lines as proof.
So, clad in white armor, Joan arrives at the besieged city of Orléans in 1429, where she meets Charles’s half-brother Jean de Dunois. She demands the English surrender, but they refuse, duh! Dismissing calls for caution, Joan rallies the demoralized French troops and leads assaults on English fortifications.
Some great special effects! Excellent cinematography. Still to come, how Joan ends up in English custody, and, well, the end, at the stake. (I mean everybody knows how it ends. Joan was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920, shortly after a renewal of public interest during World War I when Allied soldiers carried her image into battle.)
But before all that, Joan has visions of … whom? (Played by Dustin Hoffman, the cast lists him as “the conscience.”) They argue. This duality seems a nod to modern interpretations of Joan’s experiences as schizophrenia, but no argument is conclusive here.
The Duke of Burgundy avers that “The English are so arrogant they can’t accept the idea of being defeated by a peasant girl. It has to have been the devil’s work.”
Joan: “God defeated the English.”
Burgundy: “God who allowed you to be caught?”
So, while the production looks great, the storytelling is a little disjointed: a fairly horrible child’s story, then, the child a little older, a (ripping!) action/ancient-war movie, then … some deepish unresolved theological/psychological discussions. It’s still a lot of fun.
#Luc Besson #history #Malkovich #Dustin Hoffman
(Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon’s prices.)
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