The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)

Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc arrives in 1999 as a lavish, bloody medieval epic with Milla Jovovich as the martyr in armor. The cast is uniformly white European, which suits a fifteenth-century French setting and offers no modern representational commentary. There are no LGBTQ themes. Joan's trial over men's clothing is a heresy charge, not a statement about gender identity. Racial consciousness is absent, since the conflicts here are national, religious, and dynastic. Climate concerns, anti-capitalist critique, and body positivity are equally absent. These omissions are not defects. They are simply outside the film's concerns.

This film does carry feminist undercurrents. After Joan witnesses the rape and murder of her sister, her crusade can be read as a fight against male domination and the abuse of women. That reading is available, though it grows from the historical figure and from Besson's psychological invention, not from a modern ideological program. The invented Conscience, played by Dustin Hoffman, turns Joan's visions into an open question about sanity. The audience is invited to consider mental illness, perhaps bipolar disorder, but the film presents ambiguity instead of advocacy. This gesture gives the story a modern therapeutic gloss without turning it into a case study.

Besson also bends history for emotional effect. The sister's rape and murder are fabricated. Joan's visions begin in childhood. Philip the Good becomes irreligious. These choices aim at feeling, not at ideological revision. The film is not preachy. It is moody, violent, and often confused. Its themes emerge through battle, interrogation, and ash, not through direct moral instruction. As a cultural artifact, it sits mostly on the pre-2010 side of things, with a few contemporary psychological and feminist touches. The sommelier's verdict: a heavy vintage, tannic with martyrdom, faintly modern on the finish, and best served without expecting a manifesto.