Hadewijch

By [Armond White] Bruno Dumont is not into virtuousness. His studies of spiritual struggle in the gang movie The Life of Jesus, the murder mystery HumanitÃ&Copy; and now Hadewijch's the name taken by Celine (Julie Sokolowski), a middle-class French girl who enters a convent to pursue her faith's pushes spirituality to the extreme. His characters do startling, unnerving things before achieving grace; nearly lost, they confound traditional Christian expectation. This isn"t an era that rewards devout popular culture, yet Dumont"s approach also challenges skeptics; they cannot indulge their lack of faith when Dumont"s epiphanies eventually do arrive. The most unlikely's and sometimes unlikable's characters receive the ultimate manifestation of love. Celine"s journey goes through religious devotion that is actually a form of fanaticism. In the boldest provocation since Todd Solondz"s Life During Wartime, Dumont links her struggle to the fanaticism of Muslim terrorists. Hadewicjh is really a story about psychological and spiritual displacement; through religion, Dumont gets at the irrational beliefs that define contemporary political intransigence. If our left-biased media was truly intellectually serious, Hadewijch, Life During Wartime and Marco Bellocchio"s Vincere would have been the most discussed and dissected movies this year because they go scarily deep into the essence of political motivation. Dumont examines true politics when the Mother Superior who expels Celine advises, â??There is no need to be cut off from this world in order to be close to God. Celine"s self-righteousness is disparaged as, â??You"re a caricature of a nun, which is a rebuke put in sharper context when she falls in with an extremist Iman, Nassir (Karl Sarafidis), living in the banlieues. â??We can see Paris from here, he says with the Eiffel Tower in the distance, a potential target. Hadewijch goes from austere images of a wintry world to remarkably beautiful images of post-rainfall lushness. From desolation to revelation, humanism becomes visible in every living thing. Eccentric auteurs claiming profundity come and go, and so does Dumont"s inspiration, but the power of Hadewijch"s climax proves he is the real thing. _ Hadewijch Directed by Bruno Dumont At the IFC Center Runtime: 105 min.