- I grossly underestimated the appeal of German feminist film on TIFF audiences, because the line for this movie was pretty long by the time I got to the theatre.
- We studied Hildegarde von Bingen briefly in one of my cultural studies classes in university, as her pre-Renaissance Renaissance woman status is of growing interest to anyone looking at feminism in the arts (and elsewhere), and so I was excited to see a woman of many talents brought to life on the screen. The movie took a more narrow focus on her achievements; as the title of the film suggests, it focused pretty heavily on her religious gifts and only hinted around at her talents as a herbalist or composer. My disappointment comes from my own preconceived notions of what the film was about not being entirely met, since rather than be engaged by her visions I was mostly wondering what kind of brain parasite she had suffered from to cause said visions and whether or not a modern autopsy would be able to reveal these things.
- That said, Hildegarde’s strength and no-nonsense attitude were quite wonderful as she played her talents against the main priest’s* attempts to exploit those talents for fun and profit. It was incredibly satisfying for him to constantly try to deny Hildegarde the things she was requesting only for the Bishop to come down and say “No, she can have whatever she wants”. Oh, the pains of middle management.
* I’m not sure what his exact title was. There was another priest there and this guy was higher than him but he was not a bishop so, I don’t know. I’m not sufficiently versed in cloister hierarchy from the medieval era.
- Beautifully filmed and beautiful music.
- I love that in the twelfth century a teenage girl could fangirl a nun. Richardis was very “how do you solve a problem like Maria” in the beginning, which was simultaneously annoying and amusing.
- I am unsure whether Sister Clara ate that mysterious herb/fungi to terminate her scandalous pregnancy and died by accident, or if she ate it purposely to kill herself. I also loved how she secretly had to consult One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore in the night so no one would know what she was doing.
- Loved the Y1K scene at the start of the film where everyone was paranoid about the turn of the millennium and then, lo and behold, the world did not end and the sun rose again.
- Things that really gross me out: the various implements used by men and women of the cloth to cause personal suffering in order to better understand Jesus’ suffering. The flagellants were pretty gross, but when Jutta died and they discovered that spiked chain wrapped around her infected torso, that was beyond disgusting. Just… wow. I did not expect to see that stuff in this movie.
- I don’t read German so I can’t be sure, but I think the credits said they did all their own singing. There’s this song they sing at the Easter Vigil mass at my parents’ church which is basically “[Insert saint's name here], pray for us” over and over with each saint, and to my delight they sang it in this movie (but in Latin, I presume). That was pretty entertaining and I imagine much shorter since they had so many fewer saints to choose from.
Vision
Truthfully, I’m surprised she wasn’t excommunicated.
IMDB Plot Synopsis There's no IMDB plot synopsis, so instead you get a Wikipedia synopsis. "Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179) was a Christian mystic, German Benedictine abbess, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, channeller, visionary, composer, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165."
Maybe the priest guy was a friar? An Abbot? Those are the only two I can guess. Didn’t see the movie, so I don’t know. I just figured I’d guess.