Lourdes (2009)
Average Rating: 8/10
Reviews Counted: 40
Fresh: 37 | Rotten: 3
As bewitchingly ambiguous as it is beautifully shot, Lourdes explores profound themes with subtlety and a deft comic touch -- and a marvelous performance from its star, Sylvie Testud.
Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 1
As bewitchingly ambiguous as it is beautifully shot, Lourdes explores profound themes with subtlety and a deft comic touch -- and a marvelous performance from its star, Sylvie Testud.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 1,549
Movie Info
A woman searching for a miracle seemingly finds one -- but what comes next? Christine (Sylvie Testud) has spent most of her life confined to a wheelchair, unable to use her arms and legs, and while she has a keen mind and the means to seek treatment, she looks for a solution to her condition in faith as well as medical science. Christine has made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, the village in Southwestern France where a celebrated miracle is said to have occurred, and she checks into an upscale clinic
Cast
-
Sylvie Testud
Christine -
Léa Seydoux
Maria -
Bruno Todeschini
Kuno -
Gilette Barbier
Mrs. Hartl -
Gerhard Liebmann
Father Nigl -
Elina Löwensohn
Cecile -
Katharina Flicker
Sonja -
Linde Prelog
Mrs. Huber -
Heidi Baratta
Mrs. Spor -
Jacques Pratoussy
Jean-Pierre Bely -
Waler Benn
Mr. Hruby -
Hubsi Kramar
Mr. Oliveti -
Helga Illich
Mrs. Oliveti -
Bernadette Schneider
Hospitaliere -
Thomas Uhlir
Max -
Martin Thomas Pesl
Frank -
Petra Morzé
Mother -
Orsolya Toth
Daughter
ADVERTISEMENT
Lourdes Trailer & Photos
All Critics (41) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (37) | Rotten (3) | DVD (2)
One of the most observant -- and enigmatic -- movies of the year.
Top CriticIn a film rich with provocative questions, Hausner audaciously examines the ambivalent nature of miracles. Are they gifts from a loving God or random occurrences, bereft of any moral or meaning?
A provocative and surprising pleasure that may persuade even the most hardened rationalists to reconsider what religion means as a sanctity to those who have few other choices in life.
Beautifully led by birdlike Sylvie Testud as an ailing young woman in a wheelchair, every character (pilgrim and helper alike) exhibits a soul. And shaped with confident talent by the Austrian filmmaker, every serenely composed shot matters.
A paralyzed young woman with MS stands up and walks in Lourdes, but it'll be a real miracle if anyone manages to stay awake throughout this extravagantly dull film.
Adventurous filmgoers will be rewarded by its unusually open-ended storyline.
Hausner frequently composes pictures in which our view is cut off by a wall, a pillar, or a pilgrim ... but like God's silence, these obstructions remain impenetrable.
The withholding of judgment persists across Lourdes, which is comic, haunting, sweet, pious, unsettling, agnostic, and wholly deadpan at various moments.
Movies about miracles range from the awful to the unwatchable... that all changes with Jessica Hausner's Lourdes; it's a visually-striking, beautifully-realised, emotionally-devastating drama that both salutes and skewers the deeply-religious.
[An] aesthetically and tonally controlled knockout.
An odd, dispassionate religious film that will likely be more powerful for skeptics than true believers, it manages to most strongly suggest the possibility of grace by so clinically observing its opposite.
Spiritually flawed and often cynical though Hausner's pilgrims undoubtedly are, they're all too recognisably human.
The film was primarily shot on location, which gives it a heaviness, an historic weight, that dominates the movie much more than anything to do with character or plot does.
This off-centre film looks like a paean to devotion ... and yet Hausner quietly and cleverly undermines this
Hausner manages and controls our expectations in this superbly subtle, mysterious and brilliantly composed film.
At the heart of the film is Sylvie Testud, one of the most beguiling actresses in the world, and whom I would happily pay to watch do nothing more than sleep for 24 hours.
A film featuring the kind of compelling, textured female character that most serious Hollywood actresses would trade at least a decade's worth of Botox to get their claws into.
It's beautifully shot, nicely acted and about as dry as comedies get. In fact, it's so dry it might not be a comedy at all.
This film is both good and powerful. It saves the God debate, still intact, for another round. It is as magically, richly ambivalent as life itself.
A cucumber-cool satire which views the poetry and passion of spiritual faith through a prism of rigid bureaucracy and ruthless logic.
This is meticulously made, knowingly played and disconcertingly subversive.
Hausner subtly sketches in the characters involved -- the pilgrims, the carers, the bemused but conscientious resident priest -- and the tensions and jealousies that thrive in Lourdes' hothouse atmosphere, without ever showing her hand.
This is as much a subversive black comedy as a reverential treatise on spirituality.
Audience Reviews for Lourdes
Super Reviewer
Sylvie Testud does a wonderful job in portraying Christine as a real person with real depth. But there is a great cast of characters surrounding her. I found that the movie is really about how the whole group of pilgrims seeking healing and the red cross helpers react to Christine and the miracle promising site of Lourdes. The movie is slowly paced. Sometimes the camera lingering over the landscape or faces that are still and quiet seems a bit much. But when it lingers on the religious ceremonies and holy places it reveals the repetition and sometimes meaninglessness of these old traditions. People put so much hope in them anyways. I think that this movie was made in a way though that will let believers continue to believe and non-believers continue to doubt. It is ambiguous. I liked some of the advice the head priest and the head lady of the red cross gave a couple times though I disagreed with their assuming that all miracles and personal changes are a result of faith in God, Jesus, or Mother Mary. I liked hearing the doctors' scientific explanation for the roller coaster ebbing and flowing of multiple sclerosis symptoms. I liked the questions the two single middle aged ladies asked throughout as they try to make sense of it all.
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
There are no discussion threads for Lourdes yet.
What's Hot On RT
John Goodman's Best Movies
Woody Allen in San Francisco
Naomi Watts stars as Princess Di
Pictures from a zombie nation
Fresh Links
Featured
Movie: ID: 770815615 Title: Lourdes Release Date: 2010-02-17 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 6 Status: 1
Family Movie Mistakes
Even the best family entertainment experiences a few blunders now and then...
The Looks of Johnny Depp
To celebrate the star's birthday, BuzzSugar looks at the many faces of Johnny Depp.
10 Egregious Product Placements
Rolling Stone wonders if The Internship goes too far... then provides 10 examples of movies that did.
10 Bad Movies That Look Great
Sometimes even terrible movies can be beautiful; here are 10 of them, from HitFix.
50 Most Classic Movie Moms
In celebration of Mother's Day, TimeOut offers up 50 iconic matriarchs from the big screen.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter!
Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
Featured on RT
- James Gandolfini: 1961-2013 10
- Total Recall: John Goodman's Best Movies 32
- In Pictures: Zombie Nation! 0
- Video Interviews with Cast & Crew of Monsters University 0
- Digital Multiplex: 21 & Over, Quartet, and More 3
- RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: Jack the Giant Slayer and Quartet 23
- Box Office Guru Wrapup: Man of Steel Sets June Record 111
Top Headlines
-
Has Brad Pitt Ever Made a Successful Blockbuster?
1
-
Pacific Rim Set Visit Report
0
-
Shailene Woodley Cut from Amazing Spider-Man 2
0
-
Star Wars Casting Breakdown Reportedly Leaks
0
-
Universal Picks Up Dumb and Dumber To
0
-
Sam Taylor-Johnson Directing Fifty Shades of Grey
0
-
The Logan's Run Remake Has a New Writer
1
