I saw Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc today...

...for filmmaking class. In complete silence (the music wasn't working for some reason).

And yeah, it's pretty great. But I don't feel like I've really absorbed it, partially because it's a silent film and I watched it in complete silence, with no sound whatsoever, and partially because it's very old and it's always harder for me to relate to older films, especially silent ones. So it's not like I have all these brilliant and insightful things to write about it. Sure, Falconetti's awesome. But that's about all I have to say. I should really rent the Criterion DVD and watch it again and check out all the special features. I'll probably do that at some point.

In any case, everybody should see this, probably more than once (including me). It's just one of those milestones. Falconetti's performance alone makes the 80 minutes of cold, dark silence worth enduring. I have a feeling I may grow obsessed with it after close, repeated viewing. But for now, I'm just sort of appreciating it intellectually, from afar. Do with that what you will.