Opening Day: 12 August 2010

Synopsis:

In 814 A.D. Johanna is condemned to life as a woman. Her life seems to be predetermined: work, have children and die young. But Johanna decides to resist – her strict father, the rules of the Church – for the sake of her conviction and her faith. Because she senses that her destiny is a different one, that God is showing her a different path. But the price she will have to pay is a high one.

Johanna attends the cathedral school in Dorstadt and meets Count Gerold, a noble man at the Bishop’s court. Their friendship develops into love. When Gerold goes to war, Johanna remembers her destiny. But she cannot achieve her goal as a woman. Johanna makes a decision that will have far-reaching consequences: she joins the Benedictine Monastery at Fulda disguised as a man, calling herself Brother Johannes, and lives there as a successful and well-respected doctor. When her real identity is in danger of being revealed, she flees to Rome. She meets Gerold there again and realises that there is one thing she can no longer deny: her love.

Johanna continues to move up the church hierarchy and the danger of her being found out becomes greater and greater. She also increasingly feels the necessity to decide: does she want to give her heart to God or to a man? But then the decision is taken away from her: when Pope Sergius dies, Johanna is named as his successor. However, her feelings for Gerold are stronger than her fear of being found out – but Johanna’s enemies are just waiting for a chance to remove her from the throne …

Movie Review:

This legendary tale of a woman who briefly ascended to the papal throne may be set in the ninth century, but its themes and its subject matter is as relevant now as it was before. In fact, the German-made, English-language “Pope Joan” arrives at a time when the Catholic Church is once again facing calls to allow women to be ordained priests- especially since in the wake of the recent paedophilia scandal in Europe, some point the cause to the Church’s insistence on a male, celibate priesthood.

Adapted from the bestseller by Donna Woolfolk Cross, the legend of Pope Joan goes that said woman posed as a man to enter the Benedictine monastery and rose to the favour of the previous pope due to her great intellect and learning. Yet after a reign of a few years, she gave birth to a baby during a papal procession and was torn apart by an angry mob. Whether this is fact or fiction is up to you to decide, though this adaptation which begins with a French bishop arriving in Rome to enter Joan’s story in the papal archives wants you to believe its authenticity.

The bishop’s dictation frames the flow of the movie, which attempts to chronicle the life of Joan right from the time of her difficult birth to a fundamentalist village priest (Iain Glen) and his Saxon wife (Joerdis Triebel) to the time of her death in front of the Roman crowds. Even from a young age, we learn that Joan possessed extraordinary wisdom and an insatiable crave for knowledge. So despite her misogynistic father’s opposition to girls receiving any form of education, she picks up reading and writing and even Scripture itself.

These early years are presented with a bleakness and austerity that effectively, if manipulatively, gets the audience’s sympathies firmly with Joan. As her father makes Joan watch him physically abuse her mother for not objecting to Joan’s learning of Scripture, and then whips her severely for what he perceives as a grievous offence, it’s hard not to root for the brilliant and bright Joan to break free from the chains of her father’s misogyny.

But that liberation is not to come till much later, even as the chance visit of a religious teacher marks her initiation into the religious life. Together with her brother Johannes, Joan is sent to study under the bishop of Dorstadt where she meets Gerold (David Wenham), a knight whom the teenage Joan slowly falls in love with. After the invading Norse army ambushes their village while Gerold is away, Joan binds her breasts and trims her hair, beginning her impersonation as her brother Johannes by joining the Fulda Abbey.

Unfolding at a brisk pace, director Soenke Wortmann (of the German hit “The Miracle of Bern”) deftly keeps the proceedings taut and the tension palpable, as Joan takes care to conceal her identity. When at the brink of being discovered, Joan journeys to Rome where she is first appointed as a physician to Pope Sergius (John Goodman) and slowly grows to become his personal advisor. After he is murdered by his own courtiers, Joan is chosen by the people of Rome as his successor, her election as Pope a carefully calculated sweet triumph for its audience.

Yet it’s not nearly enough for Joan to be Pope, her chance meeting with Gerold igniting her feelings for him and their eventual coupling resulting in her pregnancy. This reviewer must admit first and foremost that this turn of events didn’t sit with his personal convictions too well- not for the fact that Pope Joan was female, but for her blatant disregard of the Church’s understanding of celibacy. Bearing in mind she was firstly ordained and secondly unwed, should Pope Joan have given in to her feelings and consummated with Gerold? Would such an intelligent woman have acted so callously with little regard of the inevitable consequences? Where art thou would she command any moral authority as the head of the Church?

Of course, such is the controversial nature of the legend that has remained hugely debated over the years, but it is inevitable that some audiences will find the material troubling. Nonetheless, it isn’t less of a film just because it has chosen to tackle a topic of such divisive nature. Rather, lead actress Johanna Wokalek anchors the movie with an emotionally rousing performance portraying Joan’s steeliness and vulnerability in equal measure. Best known for her roles in Til Schweiger’s Barfuss and Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex, Wokalek not only looks the part, but plays it with gusto and aplomb.

Yet it’s easy to overlook Wokalek’s brilliant acting in the film because of its subject matter which, as this reviewer has pointed out, remains as relevant today and therefore disputatious. It’s best therefore that one approaches this with an open mind, and if necessary, a piece of fiction- for you will discover that this handsomely mounted historical epic is riveting and rousing from start to finish.

Movie Rating:

(Your personal convictions aside, this historical epic of the ninth-century legend of a female Pope boasts a virtuoso lead performance by German actress Johanna Wokalek and is engrossing from start to finish)

Review by Gabriel Chong