25 replies to this topic

[M. Leary]

I still haven't had a chance to finish up a review on this, even though I still mentally refer to this film when talking about miracles in the gospels. I agree that this film really only succeeds because it preserves a tension instead of attempting to unravel a mystery, which I find... courageous.

Your shared enthusiasm motivates me to finish that up, and I particularly like how you picked up on the wide cast of characters in this great script.

Edited by M. Leary, 26 October 2011 - 08:32 AM.

[kenmorefield]

FWIW, Hausner in an interview on the region 1 DVD, Hausner

Spoiler

several times refers to the central act as a "miracle" and states that she wanted to make a film about a "miracle."

[SDG]

kenmorefield, on 12 January 2012 - 10:19 AM, said:

FWIW, Hausner in an interview on the region 1 DVD, Hausner

Spoiler

several times refers to the central act as a "miracle" and states that she wanted to make a film about a "miracle."

OTOH, she has also said that she wanted to use Lourdes "as a stage for a fairy tale." She has also said,

Quote

Lourdes is a (cruel) fairy-tale, a day-dream or a nightmare. Ill people of the entire world go to Lourdes hoping to get their health back, hoping for a miracle, because Lourdes is a place where the existence of miracles is still asserted, a place synonymous of hope, comfort and recovery for the desperate and the dying. But the ways of God are unfathomable, and the hope that on the verge of death, everything may turn out alright is one that seems absurd when life is drawing to an end. Lourdes is the stage on which this human comedy plays out.

The phrase "cruel fairy tale" has been applied by others to Lourdes the film, but in context it looks like Hausner may have meant Lourdes itself.

BTW, I am an admirer of the film and placed it on my Top 10 last year.

[Overstreet]

I just noticed that Lourdes is on Netflix Instant now. (I think it was only in their DVD service before.)

[Tyler]

Does anyone know what the song(s) Christine dances to at the end are? It seems like it should be important, but Netflix didn't subtitle the lyrics. (I've run into that on a few other films, too.)

About the ending:

Spoiler

Would it be an acceptable conclusion to just say that she got back in the chair because she overdid it and was tired? She hasn't walked it quite a while before the miracle, and there were a few lines about needing to let her body readjust. Or would that kind of gradual healing not be considered a real miracle?

The question of how long a miracle needs to last in order to "count" was intriguing, too. I've thought that the mere fact of something impossible happening, regardless of the duration, makes it miraculous, but that isn't the official position given in the film. Would it be okay to interpret a temporary miracle as a glimpse of eternity?

[SDG]

Tyler, on 13 June 2012 - 09:18 PM, said:

Would it be an acceptable conclusion to just say that she got back in the chair because she overdid it and was tired? She hasn't walked it quite a while before the miracle, and there were a few lines about needing to let her body readjust. Or would that kind of gradual healing not be considered a real miracle?

I think it's within the range of permissible interpretations.

To be certified as miraculous, the healing must be dramatic and immediate, but this does not, AFAIK, exclude any transitional expect at all.

Quote

The question of how long a miracle needs to last in order to "count" was intriguing, too. I've thought that the mere fact of something impossible happening, regardless of the duration, makes it miraculous, but that isn't the official position given in the film. Would it be okay to interpret a temporary miracle as a glimpse of eternity?

A temporary miracle could not be certified by ecclesiastical authority at Lourdes, but I am 100 percent with you in seeing in even temporary, uncertifiable miracles a sign of God's hand and glimpse of eternity.