Lise et André (2000) Reviews

• The Road To Damascus

  dbdumonteil2010-08-21

  The priest and the prostitute: these two characters were often found in the old cinema's directors of the late fifties, Léo Joannon (Le Désert De Pigalle) or Maurice Cloche (Les Filles De Nuit). Those works of long ago have not worn well, that's to put it mildly. Denis Dercourt's effort, however, has nothing to do with those old-fashioned melodramas. It's a modern movie which I would recommend only to believers because atheists would probably laugh at the providential ending, under a sky we could call Heaven. Nevertheless, the story essentially focuses on the priest and it seems that the director is less interested in his hooker and her son gone in a coma. Both go on a pilgrimage to Abbeville where Virgin Mary would have appeared and fed starving children by throwing wheat all over the place; we are told, by the driver who takes them in his car, that the Catholic church has not yet recognized this miracle. This is basically a road movie which is the priest's road to Damascus because when the movie begins, he doesn't seem to believe anymore in what he preaches. En route to Abbeville, they will meet many ordinary people from a religion scholar to bad boys. Little by little, the priest opens up and finds out that Christ isn't in his church where he conducts a choir but on the roads, in the mental hospitals where simple people watch the birds or collect shells. This is a fine performance by Michel Duchaussoy.

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