Lourdes

By setting her new movie in the eponymous religious miracle-ville, director Jessica Hausner permits non-believers a glimpse of a strange new world where faith and commodity co-exist. But even if God is working in decidedly mysterious ways, Paul Martin can find nothing amiss with Hausner's methods.

With ever the sharp eye for a fresh commercial opportunity, George Michael spent part of 1987 fashioning a catchy little pop ditty out of the battle-cry of religious stoics everywhere. Yup, that's right, you gotta have faith. And boy, can the pious sure ever back George on that one, even if they ain't so keen on absolutely everything that the ex-Wham man gets up to. The devout know that for all God's goodness, for all God's greatness, you can't expect any personal visits from the Great Big Beard in the Sky. Because favourites is a game he has no interest in playing. That and Scrabble.

Which is no particular problem so long as everyone is playing with the same shoddy hand; all on the frosty end of the holy cold shoulder. What Lourdes ponders though – with no little hint of irreverent mischief – is what would the effect be were a direct, undisguised miracle bestowed upon a recipient generally adjudged as unworthy of such a blessing? How would the unfailingly reverent be able to cope with a God who not only refuses to talk back to them, no matter how many beseeching prayers they offer in an upwards trajectory, but who chooses to cure the ills of someone with the barest of apparent interest in his heavenly cloud-dwelling antics? This avenue of exploration accordingly leads writer-director Jessica Hausner (who attracted approving critical attention for her mystery flick Hotel back in 2004) onto that most monumentally massive of all theological conundrums: if God is truly all-powerful then why does he allow bad things to happen to good people?

The events depicted in Lourdes occur in the south-western French town of that name, famed as location for a long list of religious miracles. The central character is Christine (Sylvie Testud), a young woman stricken down in the cruellest way, having been left paralysed from the neck down by the effects of multiple sclerosis. She is part of an excursion to Lourdes organised by the Order of Malta, and has been placed under the supervision of Maria (Léa Seydoux), a young, flighty, inattentive volunteer. As observed through Hausner's slowly roving camera, Lourdes appears an odd place, where genuine spirituality battles for space with a deluge of tourist tat. One scene depicts Christine, Mary and their fellow visitors queuing up to enter a prayer service, hymns being piped into the concrete tunnel where they wait. It is a curious moment. Nothing can really be said to be amiss, but the dour monotony of the set-up seems diametrically opposed to any possibility of a transcendentally sacred experience.

Hausner is unhurried in the approach she adopts in the telling of her story. Her takes are lengthy, endowing scenes with the space they need in order to exert their full impact upon the audience. This sedate pacing means there is no easy get-out in the moments which confront the full extent of Christine's physical incapacity. Hausner offers no sudden distractions buzzing into the frame, no rapid cuts away, leaving her audience to instead ponder at – perhaps uncomfortable – length how they would cope if placed in the same unenviable situation.

Lourdes depicts a tension between visitors to the site and the attendant clergy. The intimation offered by the location, and its well-documented history, is that it does offer genuine hope of phenomenal healing. The infirm descend in droves, each one of them yearning for the cure that will transform their life. Meanwhile, the church is eager to downplay such sky-high expectations, albeit without belittling Lourdes' reputation as the go-to site for Godly gratification. Yet while the priests might not believe it possible, Christine does find herself apparently touched by the hand of the Lord, and miraculously restored to full mobility. She is an instant sensation, treated like a lottery winner wherever she goes in the town. She is applauded by the staff of a café while she eats an ice-cream, she is handed a statuette of Mary in celebration of her remarkable recovery. Hausner rightly notes the dark comedy and vague inappropriateness in the, understandably human, desire to celebrate and reward Christine for her celestial stroke of good fortune.

Questions soon begin to be asked about Christine's suitability for divine remedy. She was by no means the most devout of her visiting group, even earning herself prior admonishment from the severe Cécile (Elina Löwensohn). How can she be the recipient of such spectacular, but apparently arbitrary, reward? The seeming unfairness of it all is given most explicit vent in a scene where another disabled girl's mother (Petra Morzé) finds herself shaking with white fury that Christine has been delivered from physical suffering, while her child must continue to struggle.

Hausner presents no solutions to the philosophical puzzlers she raises in Lourdes. And her suggestion seems to be that this is something she and the church have in common. For when she depicts a priest being quizzed on why God selected Christine to be the subject of a miraculous recovery, the essence of his response eschews the wisdom of George Michael in favour of another 1980s chart-bothering outfit, Bruce Hornsby and the Range: that's just the way it is.

Rating on a scale of 5 points you would score for 'GOD' in a game of Scrabble: 4

Release date: UK = 26 March 2010, US = TBC
Directed by: Jessica Hausner
Screenplay by: Jessica Hausner
Starring: Sylvie Testud, Léa Seydoux, Bruno Todeschini, Elina Löwensohn
Cert: UK = U, US = TBC
Running time: 99 minutes