In the superb film Hadewijch, French director Bruno Dumont (La vie de Jesus, l'Humanite, Flanders once again carries us along with his protagonist's journey in and out of the spiritual realm. "Hadewijch" is the convent name of a young woman who is expelled for being so devoted to Christ that she is accused of self-absorption, so she once again becomes Celine, daughter of a wealthy government minister in Paris. She wants to remain a virgin, her love of Jesus too all-consuming to allow her to embrace male suitors.

After bonding with a devout Muslim in the projects outside of the city, she takes to heart his justification of terrorist acts as a path for the faithful. She finds these tasks unsatisfying, however, and becomes even more lost than before. The trajectory of her search is often withheld from us, conveyed by ellipses. Dumont's shots of landscapes are so seductive that we begin to see divinity in the trees and hills.

The transcendental world of romantic poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) is the subject of Aussie Jane Campion's poignant, and ultimately tragic, Bright Star. Actually, it is more sbout the obsessive love a young woman, Fanny (Abbie Cornish), throws his way. Campion has regained the deceptively light, lyrical touch she displayed in fine earier works such as The Piano and Portrait of a Lady, literary in the best sense of the word. Close-ups of flowers and birds make perfect sense in a film that delves into the life of one of the great romantic writers ("A thing of beauty is a joy forever"). Romanticism implies tragedy, and Campion doesn't disappoint.

Harmony Korine definitely does not aim for the spiritual. Instead he chooses to emphasize the materiality of human existence in the provocative Trash Humpers. Scenes of his three main, made-up characters defecating, masturbating, dry humping, and butt spanking plant this endeavor firmly on terra firma, as does his showing the static-like lines and words on the video he shoots with, both of which are normally excised from a finished work. The film is surreal in the true sense of the word, with disparate objects thrown together — like a birthday cake and a toilet, in a way Marcel Duchamp would have adored. Korine strives neither for the heavenly nor the ethereal. Trash Humpers is scatalogical and irrational, as grounded as they come. It celebrates neither the afterlife nor the transcendental, but a full-on joie de vivre, even if it's not the kind you'll find in suburban neighborhoods near you.

# posted by Howard Feinstein @ 9/12/2009 11:12:00 PM

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