Mouchette
Directed by Robert Bresson
Written by Robert Bresson from a novel by Georges Bernanos
1967/France
Argos Films/Parc Film
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” ― Mahatma Gandhi[/box]
Sparse dialogue and beautiful images accompany the sad life of a poverty-stricken, victimized, teenage outcast.
Mouchette lives in abject poverty in the French countryside with her dying mother, alcoholic father, and an underfed howling infant. She is the target of much scorn from her schoolmates and others. She takes revenge by throwing mud on their clean clothes and possessions. She has become so hardened that she cannot recognize gestures of kindness when she sees them.
One night she is stuck in the woods in the rain. She observes a drunken poacher, Arsene, fighting with a drunken gameskeeper. Arsene, who quite possibly has murdered the gameskeeper, takes her to a shack to dry out and then back to his cabin. Things continue to go downhill from there.
The message of this film, if any, appears to be “life’s a bitch and then you die”. You can’t help feeling some sympathy for Mouchette although she is a very unpleasant person with a gigantic chip on her shoulder. This is Bresson, so the film is gorgeous to look at. I won’t be looking at it again.
For some reason, Bresson allowed Jean-Luc Godard to “direct” this trailer which misses the whole tone of his film.
