Jackson Booth-Millard I found this French film in the book of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, with it being rated five stars out of five by critics I was hoping I would agree with that recommendation as well, from director Robert Bresson (A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, Au Hasard Balthazar, L'Argent). Basically a young Priest (BAFTA nominated Claude Laydu) arrives at his new parish in Ambricourt, he is shunned and ridiculed by people in the village who do not accept his lifestyle and dietary choices (bread and wine). The older Priest of Torcy (Andre Guibert) talks to his younger colleague, his diet is becoming poor and he has a lack of prayer, this is because he is suffering serious stomach cancer, and the disease is causing his health to worsen. The young Priest is inexperienced and frail, but he wants to help dwellers, and he has got into a situation with a wealthy family of the recently deceased Countess (Marie- Monique Arkell), in the end of course the Priest dies from his cancer, but before dying he is absolved by a colleague. Also starring Nicole Ladmiral as Chantal, Nicole Maurey as Miss Louise, Jean Riveyre as Count, Jean Danet as Olivier, Antoine Balpêtré as Doctor Delbende, Martine Lemaire as Séraphita Dumontel, Gaston Séverin as Canon and Léon Arvel as Fabregars. To be honest, either I did not pay the fullest attention to film, or I just naturally did not find it as interesting as I hoped it would be, I certainly understood the basic parts of the story, and the leading actor was good, I'm not sure if I would watch it again to try and get it better, from what I did get out of it I found it an alright drama. Worth watching, in my opinion!

Boba_Fett1138 Even though I'm not a religious person at all, I'm still often quite fond or religious themed movies. They have a certain atmosphere and it often handles some intriguing themes, such as complete devotion, not just to the Lord but also to a certain cause.Of course this movie is not just for everyone. I mean, hey, first of it all, it's French! It's shot completely in black & white and its slowly moving. But I will say that the it's never really a too hard of a movie to watch. This is mostly because the movie mostly keeps things real and doesn't ever exaggerate or gets overly complicated with any of its themes or emotions. In a way you could call this movie one that is being like a random slice of life, like so many movies used to be made of later on, in mostly France and Italy.Even though the movie its slow, it still at all times remains an intriguing one to watch, which is all due to the way it got shot and directed by Robert Bresson. He lets the actors really tell the story and at the same time also make things work out all the better with the help of its visuals. It's a really beautifully shot movie, with some nice cinematography by Léonce-Henri Burel, who had basically been in the industry since the beginning. Obviously a guy with lots of experience with black & white cinematography. I also don't think he ever did a movie in color, not even during the later years of his career.I like how the characters within the story get slowly developed and fleshed out and also how they all interact with each other. It's part of the reason why this feels like a realistic movie and story and not like one that tries to manipulate your feelings and emotions, or one that feels like it got based on a novel, while in fact it actually did got based on a novel, by Georges Bernanos.Also of its acting feels very natural, which makes its characters work out, which in return also make its story and just overall movie work out. It's one of those movies that also deliberately used actors without any or too much experience. This can at times actually work against a movie but in this case it really worked out brilliantly.No, I will admit that the movie its pace isn't always pleasant and the movie isn't always interesting to watch but overall it all, surprisingly, is still well worth it by the end.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

n-mo Tim Cawkwell said that this story "defines French Catholicism," and that is basically true. Unsurprisingly it is truer of the semi-epistolary novel than of the film, but as one who was outside the fold of traditional Catholicism for most of his life and is slowly being brought in I think it is safe to say that Cawkwell is on to something.Robert Bresson's film strips out most of the (already spare) political context sprinkled into the original story--"democratic priests" (read: Jansenists, Gallicans, Revolutionaries/leftists), the Church in distress, a moribund and apathetic Christianity (and while it is often supposed that the French uninterested have simply abandoned the Church, in some quarters this apathy remains a serious problem among practicing and believing Catholics)--to focus on the spiritual battle of a pious priest who should have been completely unremarkable and these days would be remarkably controversial for reasons not related to those depicted in the film: the Curé d'Ambricourt (Monsieur l'Abbé... qui ? We are never given his name) is of course, as a man, a sinner, but a thoroughly CATHOLIC priest. He is faithful to the essential magisterium and committed to his parish and his parishioners.It is, however, these strengths which serve to alienate the Curé from the people he serves and to engage the disapproval of his superiors. His weaknesses--an ever-so-slight tendency toward alcoholism resulting from heredity and the need to cover a rapidly encroaching health problem--merely serve as the pretext for this scandal. In the original novel, the Curé remarks that, "the monks suffer for souls; we the priests suffer by the souls!" and this, as many other truths in the book, ring true in the film. It is fascinating to see the treatment of this character: a priest, as an imperfect man, acts as the rightful Vicar of Christ all along the Way of the Cross, right up to the bitter end, and without being sacrosanct, imitates his Master in a manner fitting, without parallel, his religious vocation.Claude Laydu, the lead actor, was not in fact an actor but a comedian for children. I am told Bresson made it a point to use a non-actor and to have this latter repeat scenes over and over to remove any desire to "act." Indeed, he succeeded: the spiritual torment, interior and exterior, is ever-present on the Curé's face and we have no doubt that he suffers by souls, as did our Master. I must cut this review short, for there simply is not enough space in the world to say all the good things about this work. In an era of low morale, apathy, and outright apostasy, it is good to return to some inspiration.

Cosmoeticadotcom Robert Bresson's 1950 breakthrough film, Diary Of A Country Priest (Journal D'Un Cure De Campagne), is one of those films that is absolutely antithetical to everything a Hollywood film stands for. It is obsessive, detailed, slow, and opaque. This, however, does not mean it is a great film, as so many knee-jerk critics claim it is. It is not; but it is a very interesting film. Ostensibly, it may seem to be a film on religion and/or suffering, or, as film critic Fréderic Bonnard claims, in The Criterion Collection's DVD essay on the film, a film 'about imprisonment,' but it's neither, really. It's more cogently a film about masochism, guilt, and pathological privation, although it does touch upon religion, suffering, and imprisonment. The film was not only directed by Bresson (his fourth of thirteen films), but also adapted by Bresson from the 1936 novel of the same title by Georges Bernanos. Anyone familiar with the works of Carl Theodor Dreyer will be familiar with the techniques used by Bresson- although this film is less stagey and more intimate in tone, but Bresson's cinematographer, Léonce-Henry Burel, is not as slow and deliberate as Dreyer, nor does the film depend so heavily on the juxtaposition between light and dark as Dreyer's works do. There is a 'lightness' in Bresson's film that is absent from Dreyer's- both in terms of the gauzey and diffused visuals and intellect. This is not to say that Bresson's film lacks depth, it's merely not as dependent upon a grand philosophical posit as Dreyer's films are…. Yet, the film never reaches the heights that other religiously meditative films, such as Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, do, mostly because of the very blandness of the narrative. Whereas Bergman's film transcends religion and cores into universal human behavior, Diary Of A Country Priest merely presents its simple narrative, and if one cannot get into it- for its religious-specific ideas, so be it. Also, the film never gets truly inside the young priest. Why, for example, does he even keep a diary? All it seems to be is a book filled with gossip and his petty and self-serving observations. Yet, the film likens the priest to a Christ-like character, rather than a mere outcast. Since outcasts are universal, why does Bresson decide to affiliate the lead character with the remote Christ and not the ubiquitous nebbish? After all, the priest has no name, and this is clearly done to universalize him, even though a priest, by definition, is a non-universal figure. Not that a Christ complex could not be compelling on screen, just that this particular one is not, for all this character can muster are vapid apothegms such as, 'The desire to pray is already prayer,' "I was a victim of the Holy Agony,' or his dying words, as related by Dufréty: 'What does it matter? Everything is grace.'Were only those words true this film would recapitulate their meaning. Failing that, it at least tries, something that, again, Hollywood films do not even dare. Perhaps that young priest was on to something?