David Hawkridge Didn't know what to expect from a movie called "Pope Joan"! I was pleasantly surprised how good and believable the story was in the first half. I am not going to try and say what the rights and wrongs are of women reaching high office in the church are. For me this was triumph over adversity with understated acting by the lead character. Not sure about the romance side of the film, it didn't seem to add much to the plot there was no real build up to the relationship. The first half of the film was more interesting than the second again the plot seemed to get lost and the characters were not as strong. In saying that I still found myself intrigued by the film. If your wondering if its a film worth watching I think its more than worthwhile. All in all I still enjoyed it even though the plot and characters could have been bit stronger.

moviexclusive This legendary tale of a woman who briefly ascended to the papal throne may be set in the ninth century, but its themes and its subject matter is as relevant now as it was before. In fact, the German-made, English-language "Pope Joan" arrives at a time when the Catholic Church is once again facing calls to allow women to be ordained priests- especially since in the wake of the recent paedophilia scandal in Europe, some point the cause to the Church's insistence on a male, celibate priesthood.Adapted from the bestseller by Donna Woolfolk Cross, the legend of Pope Joan goes that said woman posed as a man to enter the Benedictine monastery and rose to the favour of the previous pope due to her great intellect and learning. Yet after a reign of a few years, she gave birth to a baby during a papal procession and was torn apart by an angry mob. Whether this is fact or fiction is up to you to decide, though this adaptation which begins with a French bishop arriving in Rome to enter Joan's story in the papal archives wants you to believe its authenticity.The bishop's dictation frames the flow of the movie, which attempts to chronicle the life of Joan right from the time of her difficult birth to a fundamentalist village priest (Iain Glen) and his Saxon wife (Joerdis Triebel) to the time of her death in front of the Roman crowds. Even from a young age, we learn that Joan possessed extraordinary wisdom and an insatiable crave for knowledge. So despite her misogynistic father's opposition to girls receiving any form of education, she picks up reading and writing and even Scripture itself.These early years are presented with a bleakness and austerity that effectively, if manipulatively, gets the audience's sympathies firmly with Joan. As her father makes Joan watch him physically abuse her mother for not objecting to Joan's learning of Scripture, and then whips her severely for what he perceives as a grievous offence, it's hard not to root for the brilliant and bright Joan to break free from the chains of her father's misogyny.But that liberation is not to come till much later, even as the chance visit of a religious teacher marks her initiation into the religious life. Together with her brother Johannes, Joan is sent to study under the bishop of Dorstadt where she meets Gerold (David Wenham), a knight whom the teenage Joan slowly falls in love with. After the invading Norse army ambushes their village while Gerold is away, Joan binds her breasts and trims her hair, beginning her impersonation as her brother Johannes by joining the Fulda Abbey.Unfolding at a brisk pace, director Soenke Wortmann (of the German hit "The Miracle of Bern") deftly keeps the proceedings taut and the tension palpable, as Joan takes care to conceal her identity. When at the brink of being discovered, Joan journeys to Rome where she is first appointed as a physician to Pope Sergius (John Goodman) and slowly grows to become his personal adviser. After he is murdered by his own courtiers, Joan is chosen by the people of Rome as his successor, her election as Pope a carefully calculated sweet triumph for its audience.Yet it's not nearly enough for Joan to be Pope, her chance meeting with Gerold igniting her feelings for him and their eventual coupling resulting in her pregnancy. This reviewer must admit first and foremost that this turn of events didn't sit with his personal convictions too well- not for the fact that Pope Joan was female, but for her blatant disregard of the Church's understanding of celibacy. Bearing in mind she was firstly ordained and secondly unwed, should Pope Joan have given in to her feelings and consummated with Gerold? Would such an intelligent woman have acted so callously with little regard of the inevitable consequences? Where art thou would she command any moral authority as the head of the Church? Of course, such is the controversial nature of the legend that has remained hugely debated over the years, but it is inevitable that some audiences will find the material troubling. Nonetheless, it isn't less of a film just because it has chosen to tackle a topic of such divisive nature. Rather, lead actress Johanna Wokalek anchors the movie with an emotionally rousing performance portraying Joan's steeliness and vulnerability in equal measure. Best known for her roles in Til Schweiger's Barfuss and Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex, Wokalek not only looks the part, but plays it with gusto and aplomb.Yet it's easy to overlook Wokalek's brilliant acting in the film because of its subject matter which, as this reviewer has pointed out, remains as relevant today and therefore disputatious. It's best therefore that one approaches this with an open mind, and if necessary, a piece of fiction- for you will discover that this handsomely mounted historical epic is riveting and rousing from start to finish.

sakutu "Pope Joan" is NOT an historical movie, it is a Fantasy movie like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. We live in a very sad times when garbage like this is taken as "historical" when in fact there has never been a "Pope Joan".The legend of "Pope Joan" was a bad attempt of political satire during the Middle Age made to attack the Catholic Church. The myth of "Pope Joan" was totally destroyed by historian David Blondel: the story that she was Pope "from 853 to 855" is so lame considering that from 847 to 855 there was already a Pope: Pope Leone IV. So she couldn't have been Pope during that period. Pope Leone IV died in 855, and after a couple of weeks he was succeeded by Pope Benedetto III.So if you go to watch this movie, keep in mind that you're watching NOT an historical movie, but a fantasy movie. They could've added to the cast Gandalf and Frodo for all that matters, since the whole story of Pope Joan is just a bad and lame satire used in the Middle Age to attack the Catholic Church.

george karpouzas Although critics in my native Greece were very circumspect when valuing this movie I disagree with them. Many found that it lacked grandiose crowds in the battle and acclamation of the Pope scenes, but I think that in reality medieval battles and the assembly of Roman plebeians acclaiming the Pope must not have been particularly grandiose events and that added a quality of realism to the movie.Also the structure of the story, the equivalent of what Germans call Bildungsroman-that is the process of the development of character through life, was presented in a very able manner, showing the evolution of Joan, a simple but charismatic country girl, to supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.The love story subplot was also good adding romance to a tale that would have been dull otherwise and proving that even scholarly girls are not immune to the pleasures of the flesh.I have to comment on the acting of Ms Wokalek, which I found admirable in the way that it portrayed the subdued power of the character of Joan under a facade of neutral manners and also the surprise role of John Goodman who played a larger than life exuberant and kindly Pope.The evocation of the age was also excellent avoiding excesses, and presenting the mendacity of peasant life in the villages as well as the relative luxury of the ruling classes.Of course the main point of the story concerned the barriers that gender and class posed to a talented poor woman during that dark age. I think the story has similarities with that of Joan of Ark. The final surprise, which I will not disclose, must have been a novelistic devise relative to modern concerns about the Church invented by the author of the novel on which the movie was based and not an integral part of the Pope Joan legend as preserved through the ages.All in all a very able movie which I greatly enjoyed. It is a pity that the response of the Greek critics was at best lukewarm.