robert bresson's DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (1951)

the thing that's most striking to me about Robert Bresson is that his craft is so internal - unschooled performances and an almost indifferent visual approach come together in his hands as distilled, otherworldly melodrama in touch with the human (or donkey) condition, so bleak and beautiful, while the mechanics remain obscured. sad that Country Priest was showing (at nashville's belcourt) a week too early for easter; it seems like it would be a pretty powerful way for adventurous christians to spend their holiest day. but it's sad, and it doesn't offer any easy answers. has god has abandoned the ambricourt parish? possibly. (it doesn't offer so much as an easy question.) but the priest is god's device of grace, and hope clings to the sorry creatures that surround him. the climax of the second act, wherein he rebuilds a grieving mother's faith by tearing her down, is drunk on equal parts Holy Spirit and stony fatalism, and is surely among the screen's most harrowing, insightful ruminations on the politics of faith. but the rest of the film is a minor key played softly, just as with Bresson's other work. his filmmaking doesn't insist upon itself, even as it clutches your lapel and leads a sad dance.