The Passion of Joan of Arc ending explained

What happens

Joan retracts her forced confession, knowing it means death, and is burned at the stake. As she dies, the watching crowd turns on the soldiers in anger. The court wanted her silenced, but she leaves the square a martyr.

The last image

Smoke rises from the stake as the crowd fights the soldiers around it.

What it says

Joan's collapse and her return to her voices show courage as fragile, not fixed. After so much confinement, the film opens out onto the crowd, so her private ordeal becomes a public reckoning. The institution wins the verdict but loses the argument.