Johanna, a young drug addict, falls into a deep coma after an accident. Doctors miraculously manage to save her from death's doorstep. Touched by grace, Johanna cures patients by offering her body. The head doctor is frustrated by her continued rejection of him and allies himself with the outraged hospital authorities. They wage war against her but the grateful patients join forces to protect her. This is a filmic and musical interpretation of the Passion of Joan of Arc.
Direction
Mundruczó's unflinching eye for sacred transgression.
Score
Zoltán Kocsis's feverish opera that refuses to comfort.
Acting
Orsolya Tóth's physical performance—silent, erotic, devastating.
Director
Kornél Mundruczó
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of Hungary's 'Budapest school' of visceral social realism, this cemented Mundruczó's international reputation before his Cannes breakthrough with 'White God.'
The entire film was shot in an actual abandoned Budapest hospital, with patients played by real hospital staff—the institutional dread is authentic.
HU
