The striking new film Lourdes takes place in the titular small market town that lies in the shadow of the Pyrenees, where mid-19th century apparitions of the Virgin Mary made the commune something like Epcot for evangelical Christians. The holy mother appears several times in the film, which is directed and written by the Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner, but in the form of souvenir statuettes or ceramic shrines; the enigmas apparent involve neither visions nor sudden fits of Aramaic. A happening of another sort occurs, however, to Christine (the remarkable, wide-eyed Sylvie Testud), a young French woman struck quadriplegic while suffering from multiple-sclerosis. Confined to her wheelchair, Christine joins a pilgrimage to Lourdes more for the chance to take in some culture than hope for a miracle. In the Tati-esque opener, she is wheeled into a cafeteria by her helper (Léa Seydoux), who huffs and pouts when attractive Kuno (Bruno Todeschini) gives Christine a warm glance. A brief affair between Kuno and the helper is merely hinted at, and part of Hausner's film's potent mystery is that much of the action that rumbles below it is underplayed and conveyed with masterful subtlety. The first motion of Christine's arm, on a visit to a grotto of blessed rocks, is shown in medium shot without any of her fellow pilgrims noticing. This action anticipates the reaction of both the helpers, led by the gruff and stuffy Celine (Elina Löwensohn), and Christine's fellow sufferers when she wakes in the middle of the night, able to walk on her own. Christine's roommate and proxy caretaker (a very good Gilette Barbier) is joyful at first but then begins to feel the pangs of loneliness and uselessness as Christine can now care for herself without someone to push her wheelchair. Likewise, the rest of the congregation begins to teem with jealousy, bitterness, and passive-aggressive indignation rather than legitimate awe; a priest stresses the importance of a pure soul above a healed body. In the film's key scene, another priest scrutinizes Christine's condition with a doctor, careful not to label her ability to walk "a miracle." Throughout the film, Hausner stresses actions like walking in line, sitting in front of a video, waiting to receive a blessing and serving and feeding of meals. The somewhat long takes that she employs with these processes, shot by the cinematographer and producer Martin Gschlacht, deceptively pass Lourdes off as an art-drama in form when it actually resembles more of a deadpan satire. Faith, to the men and women vexed by the recovery, is only as important as its usefulness and witnessing a blessing being placed on the borderline-secular Christine gives them fodder for gossip rather than worship. Early on, Christine tells Kuno that she prefers "cultural" trips to Lourdes, which Hausner depicts as a tourist's haven; the commune, with its grey stone and castle-like structures, resembles an amusement park at times. The members of the congregation have come less to practice and further their faith than see attractions, like the woman's whose handicapped daughter miraculously begins to speak, only to have the blessing be taken away again. By the film's end, a duet between a helper and a cheesy lounge singer has become a more convincing spectacle than the sight of a legitimate act of divinity.