Oppenheimer

Year of release: 2023. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, and Robert Downey Jr.

Bruce Wayne, as imagined by Christopher Nolan in his Dark Knight Trilogy, watches his parents be killed by a Gotham City gangster who turns out to have been hired by his later mentor Ra’s al Ghul. Bruce takes his childhood fear of bats and falling to create a superhero that visits those fears onto Gotham’s criminals. At the height of Bruce’s power, he builds a cellular spy network reminiscent of the Patriot Act to track his most dangerous nemesis, and he then takes the fall for that nemesis’ crimes to preserve peace in Gotham, laying aside his work as the caped crusader with feelings of guilt about whether he did the right thing.

Why I am talking about Nolan’s Batman? Because in the Nolan Cinematic Universe, J. Robert Oppenheimer is nearly indistinguishable from Bruce Wayne. Other than Wayne being a lapsed Episcopalian (commonly assumed knowledge among superhero fans) and Oppenheimer being Jewish. No comment on the casting of Cillian Murphy as a Jew.

I do not mean to sound glib or dismissive, but Oppenheimer, Nolan’s latest sprawling historical epic that plays with time and reckons with the potential end of the world, is essentially Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises rolled into one three-hour film. That’s a factually neutral observation, not a criticism.

J. Robert Oppenheimer is a brilliant theorist who introduces quantum physics to the United States after studying it in Europe, alongside several Nazis. He’s selected to head the Manhattan Project, builds the first atomic bomb, later develops reservations about building more weapons of mass destruction although never expresses regret for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then becomes a fall guy for the communist witch hunts under McCarthyism, all while being wracked by guilt over whether he destroyed or saved the world.

What makes Nolan’s presentation of this story engaging is the liberal cross-cutting from timeline to timeline, punctuating three phases of Oppenheimer’s career with comparisons to the other two. If the movie is too long (and it is by about 30 minutes), it’s never boring even as it becomes a relentless marathon of big ideas told with bigger gestures matched by Ludwig Göransson’s bombastic, swelling score.

As Oppenheimer, Murphy does a great job at capturing the stoic coldness typical of most Nolan protagonists. At their best (Christian Bale in The Prestige and Guy Pearce in Memento), Nolan protagonists are antiheros who meticulously construct their own hell through their obsession with their career or mission combined with their off-putting personalities. Oppenheimer is certainly no exception, burning bridges with authorities and fraternizing with communists, which includes screwing one, both of which combine to make his post-war crucifixion all the more of a foregone conclusion.

I was less interested in the kangaroo court that a political rival sets up to oust Oppenheimer as a petty act of revenge than I was in the film’s presentation of Oppenheimer’s willingness to go along with it over his guilt at starting the Cold War, or so he believes. If Bruce Wayne and Cooper (Interstellar) are Nolan’s most noble flawed protagonists, with Alfred and Leonard (The Prestige and Memento) being the most villainous ones, J. Robert Oppenheimer is somewhere in between. The common link is all these men obsess over something until they lose everything else.

Nolan is not a subtle filmmaker when it comes to political themes and philosophical ideas, as starkly contrasted by his masterful puzzle-making that provides easily missed clues, which build to a jaw dropping reveal. It’s why his best films are his ruthless revenge thrillers and his weakest are attempts at philosophizing and depicting a noble humanism. Oppenheimer has both elements, but it shifts back to the puzzle-making of his earlier films, and the philosophical ideas are less on the nose than they have been in other recent offerings of his.

The puzzle’s reveal and third act twist of Oppenheimer will be no shock to history buffs, but that doesn’t mean Nolan didn’t set them up masterfully. For those who don’t know who the villain is (I didn’t) I won’t spoil it here, but the performance by that actor is superb, and his reveal as evil and his downfall are masterfully handled. The downfall is slightly undermined by an on-the-nose moment when an intern reveals the senator who thwarted him was some kid from Massachusetts who wants to make a name for himself, “Kennedy. John F. Kennedy.”

For all of Oppenheimer’s masterful craftsmanship, it hits its viewers over the head with moments like that way too often. Some of them land the intended punch; some of them don’t. My favorite of such scenes was when Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) is being grilled by Jason Clarke’s unethical lawyer and shows herself to be intellectually his equal if not superior. The most jarring of such scenes involves an interrogation about Oppenheimer’s ongoing affair with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) as Kitty imagines their naked bodies thrusting in front of her and the entire tribunal for the Atomic Energy Commission. It’s so obviously Nolan’s first explicit sex scene and one of the only scenes in the film not from Oppenheimer’s perspective, that it comes across as more of a clumsy shock than anything else.

Not that the sex scenes in Oppenheimer weren’t necessary for the story. They all contribute to Oppenheimer’s assholery, which is an essential part of a Nolan protagonist, and the first sex scene provides Nolan an opportunity to introduce Oppenheimer’s quote from the Bhagavad Gita, “Now I become death, the destroyer of worlds.” It’s another on the nose moment, especially given the line’s repetition when the Trinity test is successful, but for the integration of Oppenheimer’s messy personal life with his equal messy professional and political lives, I thought it worked.

As the theorist who can’t quite connect with the real world, Murphy’s Oppenheimer fits very neatly into the Nolan Cinematic Universe. As he struggles at school with how to relate to a professor, how to manage his affections for various women, how to serve his country, and whether the world should continue building atomic weapons, the gnawing loneliness of yet another genius man pervades the film. A tense, humorous exchange between Oppenheimer and General Groves (a very good Matt Damon) right before the Trinity test highlights that disconnect, as Oppenheimer assume the near zero chances of setting off a chain reaction that annihilates the entire world will appease the general. While we never see the horror of Oppenheimer’s work, Nolan does make it known through descriptions of the Japanese and Korean casualties as well as Murphy’s depiction of Oppenheimer’s breakdowns and imagining of his friends suffering the same fate.

At the center of the film is a tragedy, and rather horrific one at that, as Nolan’s lonely genius reaches out for connections in the most explosive ways possible finding the same hole that forms a link throughout so much of Nolan’s work.

Personal Recommendation: B

TÁR

Year of release: 2022. Directed by Todd Field. Starring Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Mark Strong, and Sophie Kauer.

Earlier this year I went to hear the National Youth Orchestra perform their summer program at Carnegie Hall. The program was the Elgar Cello Concerto and Mahler 5. My personal feelings about Elgar aside, the summer academy for those high schoolers yielded amazing results in a concert that culminated in one of the most daunting symphonies ever composed. (Actually, it culminated with an encore medley of E.T. themes, which was a perfect digestif to the concert.)

My personal feelings about Elgar not aside, the only reason to program a work as horrendously boring as his Cello Concerto is to have the audience take a nap so they’re refreshed for the Mahler. (For the record, I do like some Elgar, but he’s a very hit or miss composer for me, and the Cello Concerto is a big miss.)

Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett in a ferocious performance that’s probably her greatest work yet) presumably does not share my antipathy toward the Elgar Cello Concerto, and thus she chooses to pair it with the Berlin Philharmonic’s recording of Mahler 5 under her baton. However, by the time she selects it, it is clear Lydia has ulterior motives and is trying to groom a young, new cellist who has just joined her orchestra.

Lydia is not a monster from the first scene; indeed, the backstage shots of her taking pills to calm her nerves and being reassured by her assistant before an interview with Adam Gopnik (himself) garners her some sympathy, even if her responses to the interview are a little off-putting and clearly somewhat phony. However, as the film progresses, she becomes more and more unlikeable and the depths of her inhumanity and arrogance become increasingly apparent. That Blanchett maintains our interest in Lydia and what happens to her while also making her so repulsive is a testament to the power of her performance.

Shortly after that interview, Lydia has lunch with a colleague who clearly worships her and then teaches a conducting masterclass at Juilliard. The masterclass takes an interesting turn, when a BIPOC, pangender student insists that they can’t really be into Bach because he was a straight, cis, white man who fathered too many kids.

I’ll be honest, as a professional musician who has reckoned with truly problematic composers and performers, dismissing Bach for those reasons reeks of glib, lazy involvement with one’s art while doing nothing to actually address past and present injustices, and it gives wokism a bad name. (If you want to talk about the anti-Semitism in the St. Matthew Passion and how we reconcile that, or don’t, with current performances, that’s an entirely different question.)

Lydia’s response, however, is even worse. Her tirade humiliates the student and builds on her belief that there is no gender discrimination in classical music, and we should examine all music in a vacuum as if it exists independently of its creator, and the works have no bearing on the lives of their composers.

This is a striking contrast to the opening New Yorker interview where she reverently describes her mentor Leonard Bernstein grappling with the greater context of Mahler 5 and changing his interpretation of it depending on where he was conducting it. In that interview, she insists it’s impossible to conduct Mahler 5 unless you know the details of what was going on in Mahler’s personal life, because that influenced how he composed the symphony.

If this juxtaposition of scenes and attitudes doesn’t reveal Lydia’s hypocrisy and shallowness at first, her later interactions with everyone in her life do. A notable scene for a “blind” cello audition shows Lydia noticing that one auditionee is the attractive young female she saw earlier, because she sees the same shoes beneath the stage curtain. Lydia promptly erases whatever criticism she had written on her form.

According to Lydia’s wife (Nina Hoss), the concertmistress for the Berlin Philharmonic, the only non-transactional relationship Lydia has ever held is with their daughter. And yet, even that relationship is tainted, as Lydia has strict rules the girl must follow. Lydia’s handling of a school bully is nothing short of emotional child abuse, because in her world power and favoritism are how you achieve anything.

TÁR isn’t really a cautionary tale about power corrupting or a feminist who broke glass ceilings and then sealed them over behind herself. It’s a character study of an absolute monster from that monster’s perspective.

If that sounds tiring, or if this review’s focus on Lydia’s unethical behavior makes it seems like she’s an overbearing presence on the film, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a riveting descent into madness by a character who has replaced human interactions with artistic ones, and director Todd Field knows how to punctuate the film with reminders of the humanity Lydia is so lacking.

The film is shot entirely from Lydia’s perspective, and the unreliable narrator trope is brilliantly reflected in the editing. The opening scenes use long takes as Lydia’s confidence in asserting her worldview and her power comes across. As challenges and reckonings to that enter, the film becomes increasingly choppy and disjointed.

The one possible flaw (a second viewing my change my mind) is the final sequence which seemingly comes out of left field, because Lydia has completely lost her mind and her career. I briefly wondered if the last thirty minutes or so all took place in her mind, but I don’t think that interpretation is right.

The final breakdown of Lydia is perfectly filmed and choreographed, drawing from nearly every prominent scene that led to that climax. The hazy tracking shots perfectly reflect Lydia’s nightmares, and earlier exchanges all come to a head there.

In our culture of #metoo and canceling problematic artists, Lydia’s cancellation is a shattering of her world. That shattering is likewise reflected in the quicker editing as a world of abuse falls apart and Lydia loses her accomplishments. To claim that the film shares Lydia’s disdain of cancel culture is not accurate. For one thing, she is an unreliable narrator. More importantly, depiction of an obviously toxic world does not equal an endorsement of that world, and cancel culture is a threat to Lydia’s toxic world.

If Lydia has any real life counterpart, it’s probably James Levine, whom the film name drops by a character who sympathizes with him. While her crimes don’t equal his, and while her cancellation ends up being more severe than his ever was during his life, the question of how does one reckon with art created by monsters permeates the film.

I remember someone once saying “for every ‘separate the art from the artist’ person, there’s a better artist who isn’t a swamp monster.” I sadly disagree. Sometimes, there is a monster who is unparalleled in their artistic ability. (Confession: every time I make a list of who I think the ten greatest directors are, there’s one person I leave off, because I don’t want to entertain the conversation about the quality of his films given the crimes he committed.)

What we do with those monsters and their work is a crucial conversation. The romanticization of the asshole artist has created centuries of abuse and turning a blind eye to countless victims. TÁR is an unflinching depiction of that world, which challenges it through the toll it takes on everyone and everything: the asshole artist, the victims, their colleagues, and the art itself.

It is entirely appropriate that TÁR issues this challenge through the story of a conductor, a profession that has housed countless asshole artists. Even more appropriately, that conductor is on the brink of her career’s pinnacle achievement, and she is a woman who has fully imbibed the toxicity imbued in her profession’s past, a toxicity that at one point would have shut her out.

It’s no secret that conductors have a reputation for being arrogant, and TÁR is an example of that arrogance taken to an 11. If there’s a fine line between tragedy and comedy, it’s the tragic side of one of the most famous musician jokes:

Four conductors were sitting in a bar. Bernstein and Boulez were arguing over who was the greatest conductor. Bernstein insisted it must be him, because he had made more recordings than any other conductor. Boulez countered that he had conducted more of the world’s top orchestras, so he must be the greatest conductor. This went back and forth for some time. Looking to resolve this argument, Kleiber leaned over and said, “Fellows, you’re both wrong. God himself told me I’m the greatest conductor ever.” At which point, von Karajan slammed down his drink and said, “That’s not true, I never said that!”

Personal recommendation: A

Dear Evan Hansen

Year of release: 2021       Directed by Stephen Chbosky.   Starring Ben Platt, Kaitlyn Dever, Amandla Stenberg, Colton Ryan, Amy Adams, and Julianne Moore.

Dear Alana Beck (as played by Amandla Stenberg),

I’m sorry you suffer from mental illness. It’s a bitch. Ask me how I know, or preferably, don’t. Despite one colossal mistake that this film glosses over, you also seem like the one character in a musical of half-developed sociopathic narcissists who actually has a touch of empathy and decency. I’m sorry you’re relegated to a supporting role for a massively unethical protagonist who regrettably shares my name. I would much rather have watched a musical about you.

You also sing “The Anonymous Ones,” which is the best song in Dear Evan Hansen. One major reason for that is it is the only song that works in context, showing support for all the people who suffer from mental illness in silence. I’m shocked to learn that it is a new song written for this film adaptation and not a part of the stage production. I guess I should take this moment to admit that I never saw the musical on stage. However, after seeing the film and reading the synopsis of the stage show, I’m glad I never got around to it, because as bad as this film is, the stage show sounds even worse.

The majority of songs are not bad on their own accord, divorced from the plot of the musical. However, in context, most of them are horrific. “For Forever” sounds like a beautiful ballad about friendship, but in reality, it is a callous and cruel deception. “You Will Be Found” is seemingly an inspirational power ballad, but the lie it is based on makes it jaw-droppingly cringeworthy and offensive. “Only Us” comes across as a love duet between two awkward teens afraid to share their emotions. However, it’s exploiting a suicide so a socially inept boy can get into his crush’s pants. It’s gross.

Writing a conditional love duet was something Rodgers and Hammerstein perfected in Carousel with “If I Loved You.” However, Carousel is a horror story about abuse and communal victim blaming (despite mediocre productions that play it as a straightforward romance—including but not limited to the atrocious film adaptation). It makes sense that the “love” is conditional. Dear Evan Hansen is a coming-of-age story about a mentally ill high schooler who makes one big mistake. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere on the film’s horizon that Evan is a sociopath or incapable of loving Zoe.

Given your own mental health struggles, your decision to befriend Evan Hansen (Ben Platt, reprising his Tony award-winning role from Broadway, despite clearly not being a teenager on film) makes perfect sense. It would seem you have found a kindred spirit. It stretches credibility a little bit that you just know Evan is on antidepressants, but that’s hardly a problem giving the other issues with this film. Your passion in founding the Connor Project to honor the memory of your deceased classmate is honorable and understandable. I’m sorry it was all based on an egregious lie.

There is something very important I have to say about suicide and threatening to commit suicide (which, for the record, comes from my therapist). Threatening to commit suicide, regardless of the extreme pain one is in, is inherently manipulative and narcissistic. Committing suicide and leaving a trail of grieving people to deal with the ramifications is an appallingly selfish act. That in no way belittles the intense pain and hopelessness that depression causes; it instead acknowledges the reality that depression is a horrific illness that harms more people than just the ones who suffer from it. Please note I do not think anyone who commits suicide is selfish; I’m describing what depression does.

Connor’s (Colton Ryan) decision to commit suicide is perfectly in keeping with his aggressive, bullying personality. As much as his mother (Amy Adams) wishes to deny that aspect of her son’s personality, there is no escaping that reality. Neither can Evan escape that reality, as he uses Connor’s suicide to weasel his way into the family he wishes he had.

While depression can make one lash out and behave in ways that they would otherwise think abominable, it is not an excuse for lying to people or treating them like shit. And that is what Evan Hansen does. To some extent, the musical realizes that, but when his mother (Julianne Moore) absolves him with “So Big/So Small” because of his anxiety, it’s obvious the film is too.

If that absolution isn’t disgusting enough, when Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) asks to meet Evan at the film’s end, it is mercifully not a reuniting of the couple, but it is an unearned reconciliation between them. Zoe says she wishes they could have met for the first time then, because somehow that would have changed Evan’s many deceptions, but at the same time the film seems to be saying how wonderful it is that this healing came from Evan’s deceptions.

I firmly believe good, even great, things can come about as a result of terrible things. However, earnestly turning a teenage suicide into both a whitewashing of reality and into meaningless platitudes of everyone’s self-worth is not merely tasteless but offensive as well. It’s as if someone watched Heathers and decided that the ruthless satire would be better if replaced with mawkish sentimentality, because that would make the same portrayal of cliques and faux friendships so much more palatable. The brilliance of Heathers is that it pulls no punches in deconstructing the toxicity of cliques and phony appearances divorced from reality. Dear Evan Hansen takes many of the same scenarios and plays them straight, because glossing over the horror of what’s actually happening creates a false sense of a feel-goodness, which in turn creates a larger audience of fans who can deal with a serious subject while never having to feel uncomfortable.

As someone who suffers from severely debilitating depression, I wanted to scream at Evan several times: “That’s not how it works; that’s not how any of it works.” From his letters of bad advice to his cringeworthy speech in memory of Connor, none of this musical is inspiring or moving. As catchy as the songs are, their service to an appalling story makes them more off-putting than anything else.

The kindest thing I can say about Dear Evan Hansen is that it is full of good intentions. However, the old saying about the road paved with good intentions holds true here. If you really want to see a musical about the realities of depression handled with sensitivity and insight, we still have Next to Normal and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

Sincerely,

A musical lover and fellow anonymous one

Personal recommendation: D-

Babette’s Feast

Originally published as part of the Arts & Faith top 100.

“Babette can cook.” It’s a seemingly simple sentence offered as an offhand suggestion in a letter to Danish sisters Martine and Filippa (Birgitte Federspiel and Bodil Kjer) as one way an unknown refugee from France could help them should they take her in. And yet, the understatement and simplicity of that line perfectly foreshadows the greatness of the gift that Babette’s titular feast will be.

The first time we see Babette (Stephane Audran), it’s not the image of her seeking shelter in the pouring rain, but preparing a simple meal while the two sisters with whom she lives host their weekly prayer service. When the small religious community begins singing, “Jerusalem, my heart’s true home,” there is a cut to Babette in the kitchen. Yet again, it is a subtle detail foreshadowing where Babette’s feast will lead those who partake of it.

Similar to those miniscule details, which escape the notice of most of the characters, the feast itself is almost not noticed for what it truly is either. Only one character knows and appreciates the value of the gift Babette is giving to the community which saved her from one of the French civil wars. The rest of the community is apprehensive of her foreign feast at best and downright convinced it will be diabolical at worst.

If a feast prepared for twelve people, who don’t fully understand what the feast is, and yet it transforms them as they consume it sounds familiar to a staple of Christian theology, it’s because in Gabriel Axel’s film adaptation of Karen Blixen’s short story, Babette’s feast is a metaphor for the Eucharist. That naturally makes Babette herself a Christ figure.

Many great films about religion and spirituality contain Christ figures—Ordet, Andrei Rublev, The Seventh Seal, and more. Almost all of those films involve a Christ figure who suffers in some way for the salvation of themselves or others. What makes Babette a unique Christ figure is not that she doesn’t suffer (losing one’s husband and son in a civil war certainly is suffering), but her similarity to Christ is in the joy and grace she brings others by offering a gift of her talents, which costs her everything she has, but brings peace to a community and to herself.

It’s the portrayal of that peace and joy that makes this film a masterpiece. Every shot of the feast and its preparation are mouthwatering, the Jutland coast is beautiful, each interaction among the small community is filmed with a familiar intimacy. The ways that Babette’s presence challenges and enriches that familiarity shows the spiritual growth that any great art should induce. In a community that had become complacent in their faith and daily routines, it was suspicious, discomforting art from an outsider that challenged them to grow. Again, the growth is subtle, but the subtlety makes the transformation all the more remarkable.

What’s even more remarkable is the one guest to realize the true value of Babette’s feast. None of the pious Puritans who know her appreciate her cooking beyond it being “a very nice meal.” But the worldly General Löwenhielm (Jarl Kulle) who has lived his life with doubt and uncertainty that he chose the right path is able to recognize the extraordinary quality of the feast. Once again, great art can work its inspiration anywhere and often not where our preconceived notions tell us it should be.

In Blixen’s short story, Babette explains to Martine and Filippa that she had to cook the feast for her own sake, as a great artist. This is less explicit in the film, in keeping with its style, but Babette’s final lines are the same in both versions: “Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: ‘Give me leave to do my utmost.’” That utmost is a partaking in the divine act of creation, to quote John Paul II’s letter to artists, and whether the recipients of that art realize it or not, it incites a change. It incites a change in the entire Jutland community, and as the general proclaims at the end of the meal, “Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and bliss have kissed.”

Personal recommendation: A+

Lourdes

Originally published as part of the A&F Top 100

Year of release: 2009     Directed by Jessica Hausner.      Starring Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux, Bruno Todeschini, and Elina Löwensohn.

A Catholic pilgrimage underscored by a Lutheran chorale, a nun abandoning her duties to have an affair, a skeptic receiving a miraculous cure ahead of more devout pilgrims. A cliché I can’t stand says “God moves in mysterious ways,” and while it is possible to take that away from Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes, I think what’s more striking are the paradoxes within which grace can work.

For anyone who doesn’t know, the grotto in Lourdes, France is a very famous Catholic pilgrimage site where Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous when she was fourteen, revealing a hidden spring with healing powers. Once the vision was approved by the Church, it quickly became a popular pilgrimage site.

Christine (Sylvie Testud), the paraplegic skeptic, expresses disappointment in how touristy the grotto has become, but is still grateful for the chance to travel somewhere. Maria (Léa Seydoux), the young nun assigned to be her caretaker, is glad she is mostly enjoying it and dutifully stays by her side.

One of the best aspects of Lourdes is how much of it is left to the viewer’s interpretation. The film is in no way a sermon, and whether Christine receives a miraculous cure is debatable. Jessica Hausner sets the scenes and allows each viewer and character to conclude what they will. It’s not that different from the evidence for belief in God: we can look at events of the world and see them as proof of His existence or not. And because it’s so personal, those who choose one view will probably not persuade those who choose the other.

The opening shot of the movie is the nuns setting the course for dinner, underscored by Schubert’s Ave Maria. It’s an example of Hausner’s unobtrusive observation of literally setting a scene, but during that dinner we’re reminded that the pilgrimage is an opportunity offered to the pilgrims for the grace to change spiritually, even if they’re not healed physically.

The most notable thing about Mary’s appearance to Bernadette in 1858 is that she identified herself as the Immaculate Conception. In Catholic theology, this preservation from original sin made her the perfect vessel of grace to serve as a mediator between God and humankind by carrying the New Covenant (Jesus) in a virgin birth. That is an entire series of paradoxes, but they’re all ones which bring grace to a fallen world. In Lourdes, it is the seeming contradictions through which grace and change occur within the characters.

Perhaps the biggest paradox is that the skeptic Christine appears to receive a miraculous cure, or a nun having an affair provides an opportunity to witness that cure, or the tradition to award the “best pilgrim” is based on outward appearances. Obviously, none of those things can be known for certain, and it is in that uncertainty that grace can flourish and Hausner’s directing excels.

It is worth noting that Seydoux’s nun is named Maria, and her charge is named Christine (Christ + ine). The relationship between them may initially appear as a mother caring for a child, but once again a skeptical Christ figure who baffles and inspires others and a Marian figure who abandons her child during her transformation (or passion) are a series of paradoxes that make the grace being offered to the characters stand out all the more.

The prominent use of Bach’s Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ (I call on you, Lord Jesus Christ) as underscoring is remarkable, not only for it being a German Lutheran chorale used during a French Catholic Marian pilgrimage, but as a reminder that most of the pilgrims are calling on God for a cure to some ailment, which makes it all the more mysterious that the one who does not do so apparently receives it.

I said I dislike the phrase, “God moves in mysterious ways,” and that is because it is so often used to minimalize some tragedy or severe disappointment, as if to suggest that God willed evil. There is obviously some truth in the phrase, because as St. Augustine said, “If you can comprehend, it is not God.” That is the truth Lourdes hauntingly explores. As the final shot makes clear, we and the characters will not know precisely what happened to Christine, and each interpretation will only be influenced by the faith that one possesses.