Joan the Maid I: The Battles

Jacques Rivette puts his own inimitable stamp on the immortal story of Joan of Arc with this sprawling, two-part study, which brings a new perspective to her much-mythologized life by forgoing lofty spirituality in favor of a strikingly earthy, grounded approach. As Joan, an extraordinary Sandrine Bonnaire gets at the reality behind the legend, showing the matter-of-fact courage and vulnerability of a teenage girl thrust into extraordinary circumstances as she leads French forces into battle against the English only to find herself betrayed and accused of heresy.