Hadewijch
Loving
the Lord a little too much, young novice nun Celine’s (Julie Sokolowski)
spiritual devotion to Christ even freaks out the other, mostly elderly, nuns in
its all-consuming passion. Starving herself and practising (thankfully
undepicted) self-mortification, the Mother Superior thinks Celine may be a
little too tightly wound for convent life, that she may be taking the whole
piety and self-sacrifice thing a bit far, that the extremity of her faith may
be selfish, an extreme manifestation of vanity and that maybe a little time
back in the real world will give Celine the chance to examine her vocation and
put her life in perspective.
Cast
out of the convent, the devastated Celine returns to the Parisian home of her
wealthy parents where she soon embarks on a platonic relationship with young
Muslim Yassine (Yassine Salime), making it clear that she’s saving herself for
Christ. Increasingly drawn to
Yassine’s older, more serious brother Nassir (Karl Sarafidis), Celine comes to
see him as something of a kindred spirit.
Quiet, thoughtful and devout, he shares her fanaticism for God. Seduced by his extremism, he and Celine
visit the Middle East where the spectacle of everyday, random violence
perpetrated on the population inspires Celine to commit a shocking, brutal act
of catharsis.
Austere,
elliptical and pessimistic, Bruno Dumont’s work can be an acquired taste. It’s certainly one that I haven’t
acquired yet. Devoid of humour and
thumpingly obvious, his teenage ruminations on the bestial nature of Man and
Nature (Twentynine Palms, Flandres, Hors Satan) are usually notable only for rendering
boring his explicit depictions of extreme sex and violence. Named after the Medieval poet and
mystic who, like Celine, also had a bit of a thing for Jesus and self-harming, Hadewijch is no less ponderous than
Dumont’s other work but it is refreshingly rape-free for a change, choosing
instead to focus on a female protagonist, her intense crisis of faith and
fanaticism rather than his usual bestial males and their more worldly concerns.
The
film’s slow, contemplative meditation on religious fervor and its dark side
will divide audiences but its equating of the extremism of both Christianity
and Islam is a rich, bold move.
This isn’t a film about the rights and wrongs or particular merits of
one religion over another. This is
a film about lonely, isolated, alienated people who are desperate to believe in
something, anything, bigger than themselves. Adrift in a secular, seemingly godless world, Celine and
Nassir’s thankless devotion to God and their eventual act of terrorism is as
much a desire to prove they matter.
They want God’s attention.
They want him to notice them.
As the Mother Superior suggests to Celine at the start of the film, her
devotion is far from selfless. Her
fasting and self-punishment isn’t really about God, it’s a way for Celine to be
noticed.
Non-actor
Sokolowski gives a fantastic, nuanced performance as Celine, bringing a depth
to the pious failed nun that simply isn’t in the script, eliciting the
audience’s sympathies and identification.
Dumont never explicitly condemns or condones Celine’s actions but he
does allow her a glimmer of hope, the possibility of redemption.
Bleak
and sincere, Hadewijch is an absorbing study of blind faith and devotion.
David Watson
Writer/Director
Bruno Dumont
Cast
Julie Sokolowski, Yassine Salime, Karl Sarafidis, David
Dewaele
Country
France
Running time
105 minutes
Year
2009
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