Watching this film, in it's restored version - the 82 minute "Oslo Print" version - was, truly, a cinematic religious experience. The film moves at such a swift pace, deftly carrying the definitive photography (the framing art is made of) on it's weight like a halo. Every single frame is absolutely awe-inspiring and wholly breathtaking. The passion and power incited by Dreyer's images, nearly all of which are close-ups (exhibiting wonderfully the intimacy and telling beauty of the countenance), is sometimes so much to bear, one must turn one's head and return to the screen to be sure one is not viewing a mere hallucination.

 The seven settings - each of which is constantly backlogged in the frame - are all fantastically real - and surreal (nearly resembling the German Expressionism of such films as 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'). Of course, what Dreyer was aiming for was a very lived-in set that he could then dispose of as a backdrop - one that would carry his actors to a place of authenticity that doesn't really exist in the silent cinema. If 'The Great Train Robbery' housed the birth of the close-up and the creation of cutaway editing - 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' re-invented it and broke the mold into a thousand pieces.

 And Falconetti's face, her eyes, those lips and the hair - she is the very picture of Joan's myth, the myth we're all familiar with on a casual level. She plays her not as a martyr from the beginning, but as a greatly distracted woman - one who was distracted by voices from God even as she was, in fact, witnessing her own death sentence being carried out. And the constant and vivid blank stares and upward glances Falconetti dashes her performance with - these were enough to exhaust me.

 Extra credit goes to the Criterion DVD for containing Richard Einhorn's wonderful and very unobtrusive companion score - which never dictates the haunting quality of the images - merely provides another layer of authenticity (especially in it's evocation of Joan's voices and love of bells).

 One of a handful of the great films ever produced. Simply the best cinematography I've ever seen on the screen. A magnificent achievement as both Dreyer's masterwork - and the restoration team that has created this opportunity on the cutting edge of our technology - so that we may never lose it again.

 If we could scour all the mental institutions of the world - perhaps one of their closets would house "London After Midnight". I can dream, can't I ?