Caryn-2 Reviews

Pope Joan (2009)

Incredible portrayal of 9th-century life

[7/10 · 21 January 2012]

I'd vaguely heard of Pope Joan, but didn't know until looking her up this morning that she almost certainly didn't exist; I don't know if I would have watched the movie, knowing it was based on a novel I hadn't read. It was kind of slow-moving, and didn't have the lush costumes that are often my favorite part of historical movies, but it did have the most accurate portrayal I've ever seen of life in the middle ages. At the beginning of the movie I was surprised to see the title character's mother giving birth right in front of two other children, but then remembered that, just as people were conceived in full view of the household, they were born that way as well. As the movie went along, there was nothing missing but the smell! Several years of watching The Highlander didn't give me as graphic a view of what a beheading must actually look like as this movie did, and other details were just as they would have been. I'd recommend this movie most heartily to history majors and anyone who thinks the vanished past was glamorous.

Joe Versus the Volcano (1990)

Combines a life-affirming message with "in-jokes" for movie lovers.

[8 March 1999]

This is my favorite film for a number of reasons. One reason is that it includes _homages_ to many classic films. For instance, the very first shot of the factory immediately brings to mind Chaplin's _Modern Times_ and Lang's _Metropolis_. The first minutes of the film, until Joe is called into the doctor's office, are filmed almost in black and white. The tones are all grey, black, or taupe, with some glaring whites. Then the door to the doctor's office opens to show warm leather, paneling, and firelight, and it's a sudden reminder of _The Wizard of Oz_, when Dorothy opens the door into Oz and the movie changes from black and white to color.

I also look for the "crooked path," which shows up four times at different parts of the movie. When Joe says, "We've come a long way on a crooked path," we know exactly what he's referring to!

I could go on with these details for pages, but I don't want to leave out the main reason this is my favorite film. It is one of the most life-affirming movies I have ever seen. When I had received devastatingly bad news about my health, this is the movie I watched, and it helped get me over the hump and start integrating the condition into my life.

Movies like this are one of the reasons for having movies at all, and I will continue watching it, as I return again and again to favorite books, for the rest of my life.