by Allan Fish
(France 1950 120m) DVD1/2
Aka. Journal d’un Curé de Campagne
Is this the way to Ambricourt?
p Léon Carre d/w Robert Bresson ph Léonce-Henri Burel ed Paulette Robert m Jean-Jacques Grünenwald art Pierre Charbonnier
Claude Laydu (the priest of Ambricourt), André Guibert (the priest of Torcy), Jean Riveyre (Le Comte), Nicole Ladmiral (Chantal), Nicole Mauray (Louise), Rachel Bérendt (Le Comtesse), Martine Lemaire (Séraphita), Antoine Balpêtré (Dr Delbende), Jean Danet (Olivier), Gaston Séverin (Canon), Jeanne Étéviant (housekeeper), Bernard Hubrenne (priest Dufrety),
I know, awful pun, even mentioning Tony Christie in the same sentence as Robert Bresson. Yet, this really is the way to Ambricourt and also the way to the first great film of this most singular of minimalist directors. With this, his third completed feature film, an object lesson in spiritual harmony and understatement, Bresson joined the league of the supreme masters. It’s a film that of course personifies his fears, philosophies and attitudes in a nutshell, and those who compare it to the works of Bergman, and, especially, Dreyer, are right to do so. Yet in many ways, their work is poles apart.
In the thirties, an unnamed priest comes to the remote country village of Ambricourt. There he is subjected to much indifference, more than a little ridicule and a great deal of apathy. Yet like many such altruists, he accepts his lot, accepts his parishioners faults, attempting merely to be there for them when they need him. He eats very little, and when he does he runs the risk of becoming ill. What he doesn’t realise is that his faith is about to be put to the ultimate test; he’s dying of terminal cancer.
To say that Bresson, Bergman and Dreyer are soul-mates is somewhat misleading. Bresson is interested in outsiders, very often one protagonist against the world. This is sometimes true of Dreyer (whose Joan of Arc underwent a not too dissimilar but much more harrowing test of faith), but rarely of Bergman. Bresson’s heroes and heroines are truly alone, be they teenage girls, pickpockets, prisoners of war or priests. Yes, Bresson honoured Dreyer in many ways, not least by making his own Joan of Arc, but one gets the feeling that Dreyer, and perhaps even Bergman, do believe in God. Bresson was an agnostic, but to these eyes that allows for a fresh insight, a fascination with a faith that the director himself doesn’t share. It’s a feeling that also permeates Pasolini’s minimalist masterpiece The Gospel According to St Matthew, but is equally exemplified here. Furthermore there is another difference to Dreyer; that of the actual faith. His priest is a Catholic, whereas the protagonists of Dreyer and Bergman’s works are staunch protestant puritans (compare say to Dreyer’s Ordet). Yet Bresson dares to show that his Catholic protagonist can have similar doubts to his protestant cousins in Christ. His priest’s life is more puritan than Catholic, which may be deliberate in itself. He’s interested not with individual faiths but with the very notion of faith itself. That and showing that priests, too, have human urges and can feel real hurt. As the opening narration tells us, he shows “the simplest and most significant secrets of a life actually lacking any trace of mystery.” His journal really is a diary worthy of the Grossmiths, as close to a nobody as could be offered.
Bresson has often been accused of being overly austere, but such critics are missing the point entirely, this austerity is essential to showing the inner workings of a tortured soul. His protagonist (marvelously played by 23 year old non-professional Laydu) is an introvert with no inter-social skills at all. He somehow belongs in such an anonymous village as this, as far removed from the richly characterised villages of Tati and Pagnol as could be offered. There are scenes here, especially involving the deceptively innocent looking girl Séraphita, and the priest’s final lonely demise, that are almost unbearably moving, all the more so when you consider that the village in question would soon be virtually destroyed in World War II.
Excellent review of a great film, Allan. I look forward to whatever Sam has to say here, too.
A stellar treatment of what in my not-so-humble opinion is one of the three greatest films of the 1950’s and hence, one of the greatest films in gthe history of the cinema, by one of its most consumate artists.
“Le Journal d’Un Cure de Campagne” as it is known in French is a harrowing, and as Allan asserts austere film, that surely is as bleak and hopeless as any film, yet a poetic/lyrical beauty suffuses it’s painterly frames.
I plan next week to write my own review for the site on this film as well, to answer your much-appreciated query Alexander.
I NEVER FORGOT THAT YOU TORTURED ME INTO WATCHING THIS YEARS AGO!!!
THAT PRIEST WAS A NURD!!!
AND SUBTITLES TOO!!!! UGH!!!!
Russell, you are a card!
This is a fascinating review, and I particularly enjoy your astute distinctions between Bresson and Dreyer (often lumped together, as in Paul Schrader’s “spiritual style” essay, though he does point out the differences in their individual interpretation of spirituality). As a lapsed protestant (now atheist) myself I have a soft spot for directors who can move me within an ecclesiastical framework (or in the case of Luis “Thank God I’m an atheist!” Buñuel, a scathing inversion thereof).
Phillip Lopate, one of my favorite essayists, has a fine piece about this movie that examines how he was enthralled by it in it his youth and then less entranced later in life. I found it online, for anyone wishing to read it:
http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/philliplopate-moviesandspirituallife.html
Thanks you very much Jon for that! I do know this piece well, and discovered it while scouring (over two years ago) through Mr. Lopate’s essays searching for his work on Mikio Naruse. It is a truly magnificent essay, and I can well understand, in view of the reasons related why “Le Journal” changed Lopate’s life. That is the ultimate testimonial to this film’s true greatness. I plan to take this film on as well, although Allan’s superlative review here is certainly not in want of anything.
I didn’t include this film on my list, but I’ll admit it haunted me long afterwards. The black and white photography is among the best I’ve ever seen.
Thanks, Alexander and Jon, it’s not my favourite Bresson, but still more than powerful enough to force its way into the top 50 of the decade.
I must credit Sammy for turning me on to Bresson when he had that email network 60’s poll a few years ago. And this film is my favorite of all of his work, but I like Pickpocket, A Man Escaped and Balthasar a lot. It’s funny, I still have not seen Mouchette, as the copy I was given did not work. I must ask for another one. The priest is one of the most tragic of characters, but I am all with aethism, as I rejected the Catholic Church and its membership of rapists, thieves and degenerates many years ago.
I think the Catholic sensibility here as in Bunuel is not so much agnostic or atheist, but ascetic. There is a sense of faith lost, and as Lapote says in his essay, the lingering desire that the faith that is lost will be found anew. Pasolioni’s magnificent and austere Gospel According to Saint Matthew similarly strips back the Christian narrative to its essentials. While these narratives are attacks on Church ‘magnificence’, they are also journeys of faith. To abandon faith is in essence a positive negation: a withdrawal into the self and a journey to an existential faith – living a life unadorned by artifice, hope, or ambition… the essence of the Christian life.
Tony, I quite agree wityh what you say here on the Pasolini masterpiece, and likewise you make a very persuasive point about the correct interpretation of the Lopate piece! One of your greatest comments ever, if I may say so.
Great review of a fantastic film, and thanks for not placing Dreyer and Bresson together. I ADORE them both, but have, actually, little in common! We have no one quite like them anymore…only a few films that sometimes equal the spiritual purity of their masterpieces.
Yes, can’t argue with that, fche. They are irreplaceable.