The Messenger

The Messenger is an extremely good movie from a number of perspectives excluding those with narrow religious sensitivities or historical purists. The film asks some profound questions, which is the focus of this review. The movie is both realistic and bizarre in its presentation. It’s like 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Mr. Smith Goes to Washington combined with Braveheart.

The movie is superbly done regarding; sets, costuming, battle scenes, and the horrors of medieval war. The use of CG technology [computer generated imaging] really added to the movie. The producers went to great lengths to use authentic looking battle equipment. The movie buff that watches this film is sure to be entertained.

The movie is rated (R) because it depicts a brutal rape and the battle sequences are very intense and particularly gory. There is no nudity but a lot of colorful adjectives.

The story centers on the near mythical figure of Joan of Arc. Joan was born in about 1412 and she died May 20th 1431. Joan was known to hear “voices” of various entities; St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret to name a few. In the beginning these “voices” told her to “drive out the English and bring her Dauphin (Charles the VII) to Riems for a coronation.

The main characters were played by:
Milla Jovovich………….Joan of Arc
Dustin Hoffman………..Joan’s Conscience
Faye Dunaway…………Yolande D’Aragon (Charles VII’s mother-in-law)
John Malkovich………..Charles VII (the Dauphin)

The setting of the movie starts with a specific event in Joan’s upbringing where English forces burned her village, which is historically accurate according to Catholic anthologies.1 The movie depicts her sister being impaled on a sword then raped, as Joan helplessly observes in horror. This detail is not a proven historical fact, but appears to be a way the moviemakers attempted to explain how or why Joan may have been motivated or affected in her life. The movie is a mixed bag of historical facts as well as artistic license being taken with the actual facts.

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Dustin Hoffman questions Joan [her conscienceas the English court dogs her in questions trying to entrap her late in the movie."

In this movie Joan appears to be a fairly regular young person, with the note that she was extremely pious. She soon becomes affected by “voices” and “visions.” The movie depicts these experiences in psychedelic sequences of blurred, slow motion and avant-garde imagery. The sound and visuals shift into a series of choppy segments where Joan is swept up into it all. One particular event is both fundamental to depicting the moviemaker’s contention that Joan was a bit unusual, while it also sets the stage to deal with some profound questions as Joan struggles with her conscience later in the film, which was masterfully played by Dustin Hoffman.

This early epiphany is continually referenced throughout the movie. The sequence depicts Joan frolicking in a field close to home when she suddenly has a “vision” in which she ultimately discovers a sword. After picking up the sword she is suddenly in a different place that perhaps becomes the impetus for her to take the English occupation more personally. In the movie the religious community, unable to process these experiences [the rape and Joan’s epiphanies] can only console her with platitudes. Thus these factors continue as a compelling force in Joan’s life.

The rest of the movie is a series of historical reenactments, which hold to some accounts of Joan’s life. Some of the events are altered in the movie sequences but this appears to be because of objectivity and maintaining an audience, not because of any malicious revisionism on the part of the moviemakers.

What can be gained from this movie:
This movie great fodder for thought; chief consideration should be what constitutes “God speaking to us.” Secondly, we must question if God specifically sides with a particular country in a war? Thirdly, how do we interpret if a religious experience is sound or questionable? Additionally, this movie depicts Church-State relations in perhaps the worst possible situations but one that is stereotypically and uniformly representative of ecclesiastical history. This movie provides us the contrast to see that the church [the Kingdom of God amongst the kingdoms of men] needs to become the alternative Christ set it up to be, rather than being an intrinsic part of the world’s problems as it has become.

God speaking to us:
Joan said that God [singular] spoke to her, which some French theologian inquisitors also accepted. Yet Joan also referred to these occurrences as “voices” [plural] that were accompanied by blazes of light,2 which the movie depicts. The character of, or exact identity of Joan’s “voices” and “visions” are never divulged in so many words in either the movie or in real history. The movies leaves a lot of room to interpret what was put on celluloid, as the historical accounts vary widely on the point of what is esactly historical fact concerning Joan. It would appear that the movie attempts to depict the “voices” Joan hears as coming from Christ, which has some historical precedent. This is fine except we probably need to question this assumption a little closer. God has given us the means to test experiences, which, either historically or even in the movie; the ecclesiastical order failed to use this approach. Rather they used subjective theological ideals and downright political expedience as the means of “testing” Joan and her experiences.

The idea of God communicating with us, or in this case Joan, is something of a great controversy. Jesus said that He did nothing of His volition but only that which He saw the Father doing (John 5:30, 6:38, 8:28-29). None of us even Joan of Arc can claim this, however it is biblical to know and expect God to communicate with us.* The Apostle John wrote: “He, who has ears, let Him hear what the Spirit is saying” (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 29, 3:6, 13, 22 NLT). Notice the perfect present tense of this statement, “the Spirit is saying”. In other words, if we have ears to hear we should be listening [able to hear] because the Spirit is continuing to speak.

In any case, Joan’s experiences do not confirm or disprove anything as far as her “voices” emanating from God, either directly or indirectly through “intermediaries.” Though she was pious, we cannot assume anything regarding the exact nature of her communiqués without figuring in other factors. Number one is the religious construct in which she was raised, namely: the veneration of saints. While revering people of faith is admirable, thinking that we should pray to them or thinking that they will communicate wisdom to us is highly questionable. In addition, it sets the stage for communication from unexpected sources. The Bible does make significant reference to “familiar spirits” and angels of light, who are actually demons. If we can’t say that these aren’t real possibilities in Joan’s case than we could be ripe for deception ourselves.

*God speaking to us does not mean in an actual voice such as Joan submitted. It can be through another person [word of knowledge] (1 Cor. 12:8) or it can be through a quiet understanding (1 Sam. 3:1-13) yet it will be personal and consistent with Scripture. In addition, it will not draw a person’s attention to the experience of the communication, but directly to God Himself for a better relationship with Him. Joan’s experiences drew attention to themselves and only passive reference to God. The message was not one of directing the Dauphin (Charles the VII) or the French people towards God, but towards freedom from foreign domination.

God siding with one nation over another in war:
One question that is not even considered in the case of Joan of Arc, historically or in the movie or even regarding “Christians” in general, deals is with whether God specifically sides with one nation over another in military action. In the movie, Joan tells the English that they should obey the King of Heaven and leave France. This is representative of the historical facts. It is also the basis by which to question both the validity of God supposedly siding with one faction or another in a war and whether the “voices” Joan heard was really God or something else pretending to be like God.

We can see in the Old Testament that God definitely was on the side of Israel (Jud. 6:16, 1 Sam. 7:10, 23:2) and definitely on the side of some of Israel’s enemies at other points (2 King 13:3, 24:1-2, 1 Chron. 6:15, Jer. 21:2-7, 22:25-26). However, there is no such evidence in the New Testament. Christ ushered in a new era of a spiritual world Kingdom [the Church] amongst the world.* This kingdom is not made with hands and it is not of this world (John 18:36). God may have interests in nations fighting one another, yet in the gospels Christ quite passively states that “nation will rise against nation” without the slights indication that God was interested in any of it. This is not to say that God is not involved, but rather to question the active thought of mankind that God is supposedly always on one side or the other in any given military action.

To go as far as Joan did, as well as countless others have done historically; emphatically declaring that God is on our side against another group is without precedent in the New Testament. And nobody can claim to be like Israel in the Old Testament where God in fact sided with Israel or another nation in concerns to Israel. In fact, the statement or notion that God is on one side or the other denies Christ’s stated purpose that He created another “nation” bearing fruit [doing what He wants], one which is not founded on men’s ideas or that is of [conditioned to] this realm [the physical world], (Matt. 21:43, John 18:36, Phil 3:20, Heb. 13:14).*

How do we interpret religious experiences:
As mentioned before we need to consider other details than just an experience itself by “testing the spirit” of an incident. We can do this through several means:

1. The experience should not abrogate scripture.
2. The experience should not become a focus itself.
3. The experience should press us into a deeper relationship with God, not further “doses” of the same experience.
4. The character of the experience. Is it personal/impersonal, condemning/convicting focused on the temporal/eternal?

Given that God is not in the business of justifying man’s self-centered, temporally purposed, activities; depicted in war and the motives behind it, we must seriously question Joan’s religious experiences. The “epiphanies” both in the movie as well as real history have conflicting characteristics. In this movie “jesus” appears as both young and old, he questioned and directed Joan [opposing concepts] concerning the same things. In both history and this movie the “voices” had a nationalistic appeal. The deliverer of Joan’s “voices” both in history and in the movie were both impersonal, even though he/they [it] made a personal visitation to Joan. Joan was the one, even in historical accounts that identified “god” and various “saints” in her “visions” and “voices.” This note is a specific feature, which puts Joan’s “voices” into question because in the Bible record, an angel or the Lord specifically identify themselves to the person they visited, (Gen. 20:10-13, Exod. 3:2-6, Josh. 5:13-15, Dan. 10:7-14, Luke 1:11-19, Acts 26:12-19,Rev. 1:10-18).

*Yet the church, or what is thought to be the church has became very much of the world, as this movie illustrates quite lucidly.

*Christ stated this fact of His realm not being “physical” while He stood physically before Pilate. What was Christ physically on earth for, saying these types of things to Pilate, if His only purpose was to die for sins? Either He was crazy or He was speaking metaphorically about a spiritual reality lived out within a physical realm.

Joan’s “voices” supported a nationalistic/patriotic agenda, not the agenda of the Kingdom of God on earth. Though this “grid” was not used in historic considerations about Joan, it is clear that if one is going to be of a Kingdom of God mindset, premonitions to free ones earth homeland are meaningless. There are only two kingdoms; the kingdoms of darkness [those are the ones fighting all the time] and the Kingdom of God [which contains people from all over the globe (from every tribe tongue, people and nation) with whom there is no distinction between] (Acts 15:9, Rom. 1:14-16, 2:9-26, 3:22, 10:22, 1 Cor. 1:24, 12:12-13, Gal. 3:28, Eph. 2:11-22, Col. 3:5-11).

Church-State Relations:
The Catholic Church [which merely represent every form of the organized church in any era] was a pawn on both sides of the war between England and France. England, which did not leave the Catholic Church for another 100 years after Joan’s execution used the Catholic bishop of Beauvais, an unscrupulous and ambitious man,3 as the means of conducting an English court; convened with a verdict already in hand before the proceedings started. This is historical fact, which the movie illustrates clearly. The French maintained the church as a part of its’ court, almost like having a court magician, a court jester or the court pooch [who can be beckoned or ignored at any moment]. In other words, the church was nothing more than a superstructure underneath the State at best or a leech at worst. But it certainly was not an alternative to the State.

If the church wasn’t in bed with the politics of the day, to keep a safe place in the world with which to manipulate for its own ends, it could have been an alternative. An alternative causes a reverse dialectic where the State has to synthesize towards the church in order to keep its’ constituency from going in the direction of the church exclusively. If the church stands for what is right and society knows it, the State will not be able to sweep us under the rug. An alternative brings about change without manipulation, political intrigue, or compromise.

The organized church of Joan’s era let her down by playing the State’s game rather than being something outside the State’s identity, policy or culture. The church used Joan of Arc as a pawn, as it has used many others down through history. It used the situational ethic of cutting off an arm in sacrifice to the State, so that the body [the institution of church] could continue within the State’s provision.

Final Thoughts:
It may appear to some that I have been hard on Joan and soft on a movie. However, I look at Joan’s life and the movie from the point of view of essence. Yes, there are some specific details I point out in disagreement; but this is to learn, not condemn.

The movie sequence where Joan’s conscience, played by Dustin Hoffman, confronts her is actually an opportunity for us to reflect. The dialog about what Joan saw and why she interpreted it the way she did, is really immaterial concerning her historically. The moviemakers posed questions, which are worthy of consideration on a personal level in our own lives. If we quibble about Joan and historicity of the movie, we have missed the forest for the trees.

The essence of this movie is that is shows a church that is duplicitous and adulterated. It also shows how an institution can use a person and then leave them hanging. The movie helps us to step away from our thoughts and feelings about a touchy matter and see a bigger picture, if we are willing to.

1. Wikipedia Online Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_arc, also The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409c.htm
2. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409c.htm
3. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409c.htm

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