Madonna, the great agent provocateur of pop, has engaged the vision of Emmanuel Adjei to create her boldest, most provocative video in years - featuring a searing performance by Mykki Blanco, as Joan of Arc.

Blanco plays the hunted, defiant and doomed Joan in the Dark Ballet video - the distinctive modern casting of a transexual in the role of a timeless symbol of the powerless and downtrodden, in an otherwise believably medieval setting.

It's immaculately created by Adjei on the epic scale that distinguished his MVA-winning video for Sevdaliza's Shahamaran last year, and Blanco fits seamlessly into that world, where beauty and music video aesthetics sit alongside moments of real horror - Adjei certainly does not shy away from Joan's terrible fate.  

This is also Madonna getting back to one of her favourite themes - the systemic repression of the Catholic Church. Perhaps boldest of all, as she locks horns with an old adversary, she remains largely invisible herself. She only appears in one shot in the entire video.