Recommendation

Diary of a Country Priest, dir. Robert Bresson, 1950. Bresson begins to experiment with paring down the audiovisual experience in this film. This would become his trademark in later films such as 1959's Pickpocket: attempting to reach a state of transcendental audiovisual purity. He also began to use non-actors in this film: the Country Priest is played by non-actor Claude Laydu, though Laydu would go on to achieve some success in acting and directing later. Laydu plays a priest recently assigned to a country town; the film documents his trials in attempting to reconcile the differences between reality and high, religious morals. Ultimately, this is a film about a single individual - Laydu's character - and his struggle to justify his faith toward God. The film follows Laydu's character, as he observes the townspeople in his journal - the journal entries are given to the audience in voice over. Voice over is also used to narrate what the character is doing at various moments - often the narration itself distracts from the sublime power of Bresson's stark visuals. However, given that this is the story of a man obsessed with reality and attempting to embrace the sublime, the oppressive narration makes sense: he is unable to embrace the Grace of God as it exists around him. We are trapped in that state with him; we realize how similar we are to the Country Priest, a man of God.