aka Journal dun curé de campagn, Robert Bresson, 1950
Star Review
As synonymous as the name Robert Bresson is with high art in the cinema, it’s unfortunate that such associations obscure the deep, emotional gravity of his work. Bresson himself may have been an intellectual, but on the whole, his work is not: primarily concerned with the feelings of existence -the sights and sounds of objects and bodies - his sensual work is a never ending quest to discover the extraordinary in the everyday.
Fortunately, his third and (then) most personal feature, Diary of a Country Priest (1950), is one of his most accessible and compelling works. It documents a young priest’s dark night of the soul as he struggles to find and bequeath spiritual grace in a muddy, rural village comprised of stark trees, grey skies, and watching, whispering faces. It captures the sense of isolation and personal uncertainty like few films before or since, making its moments of spiritual clarity and inner victory all the more unexpected and piercing. It’s a film designed to be experienced rather than analyzed, yet its insights will linger for a lifetime.
A young priest arrives in the country village of Ambricourt to attend to his first parish posting, but he is immediately rejected by the apathetic and hostile congregation. Through his diary entries, the young priest communicates his suffering and the crisis of faith that threatens to drive him away from the village. Diary of a Country Priest was the film that saw Bresson beginning to implement his style of stripping away all but the very essentials of dialogue, image and music from his work.
A Man Escaped
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Diary of a Country Priest
