The title of this 2009 French drama refers to both the 13th-century Catholic mystic and a doleful 21st-century virgin named after her (Julie Sokolowski), who’s evicted from her rural convent for her excessive piety and self-abnegation. Back home in Paris, the young woman rebuffs admiring men, insisting she longs only for Christ; after a young Arab (Yassine Salime) becomes smitten with her, his Islamic fundamentalist brother (Karl Sarafidis) recognizes her zealotry and suggests she channel it into action. Director Bruno Dumont (L’Humanite) suggests that sublimated physical desire causes a yearning for transcendence—and self-annihilation. In French with subtitles.
Hadewijch
1 hour 42 min • 2009