Sous le soleil de Satan (1987)
Directed by Maurice Pialat

Film Review

Encouraged by the success of Police (1985), a bold but popular attempt to instil greater realism into the policier genre, Maurice Pialat immediately committed himself to a project he had long nurtured, an adaptation of Georges Bernanos's 1926 novel Sous le soleil de Satan (a.k.a. Under the Sun of Satan).  It was a surprising departure for an auteur filmmaker whose only previous literary adaptation had been that of his own novel, Nous ne vieillirons pas ensemble (1972).  Pialat saw in Bernanos's novel an opportunity to express his present disillusionment with cinema, specifically the abandonment of artistic integrity under the diabolical influences of tawdry commercialism.  The novel's subject, a young priest tormented by his doubts and a profound need to prove himself worthy of his vocation, clearly had a resonance with Pialat himself, a filmmaker who, throughout his career, was stricken with anxieties about his own abilities, which were aggravated by his obsessive perfectionism and the far from complimentary views of his detractors.

Prior to this, two of Bernanos's novels had been adapted by Robert Bresson, Le Journal d'un cure de campagne (1950) and Mouchette (1967), both widely considered masterpieces of French cinema.  Like Bresson, Pialat adopts a coldly austere style of mise-en-scène for his film, but unlike Bresson he drives his principal actors to exteriorise their inner feelings, almost to the point of hysteria in a few scenes.  Pialat's liberal use of long, static takes, where the camera is focussed immobile on one or two of the actors, gives the film an uncomfortable intensity, and whilst the dialogue is dense and laden with esoteric philosophical discussion it somehow exerts a mesmeric hold on the spectator, like a mystical enchantment.  And how could we fail to be enchanted by Gérard Depardieu and Sandrine Bonnaire, two actors driven to the absolute limits of their abilities by a director who would settle for nothing less than perfection from his cast and crew?

Depardieu had previously starred in two of Pialat's films, Loulou (1980), and Police, and would subsequently feature in the director's final film, Le Garçu (1995).  It was the role of the conflicted country priest Donissan in Sous le soleil de Satan which allowed Pialat to get the most out of Depardieu, and in a career that is awash with stunning performances, it is the one that stands out as being particularly impressive.  The contradiction between Depardieu's bear-like physique and the natural gentleness of his persona has been exploited by many filmmakers, but it is especially well-utilised here by Pialat.  Depardieu's Donissan is at first a pathetic character, a confused, self-pitying wretch who resorts to self-flagellation to tame his wayward spirit.  But, through the spiritual ordeal he undergoes, tested by the Devil in various manifestations, he acquires a nobility that reveals to us what true faith is: not blind subservience to the traditions of a particular creed or random acts of charity, but the complete submission of the will to that part of our nature that is inherently good.

Running in parallel with Donissan's painful journey towards saintliness is Mouchette's gradual descent into Hell.  Again, the casting of Mouchette is perfect, Sandrine Bonnaire being one of those rare actresses who can bring adolescent fragility and demonic possession to the same character with absolute conviction (as she showed even more memorably in Claude Chabrol's La Cérémonie a few years later).  It was Pialat who gave Bonnaire who first important role, in À nos amours (1983), and it was for Pialat that the actress has given some of her best performances.  As in Bresson's film, Mouchette is portrayed as a victim of a male-oriented society that exploits and abuses women, so it is not satanic evil that drive her to kill, but a desperate desire to be free of male domination.  Bonnaire's portrayal of Mouchette is every bit as harrowing as Depardieu's Donissan - the two characters are very much alike, both searching for something that will remove the burden of doubt from their souls.  Pialat himself appears in the film, appropriately cast as Depardieu's spiritual mentor - symbolic perhaps of the close bond between the actor and director.

Making few (if any) concessions to the prevailing trends in conventional cinema, Sous le soleil de satan met with a very mixed reaction from the critics.  For some it was an unqualified masterpiece that represented the best in auteur filmmaking; for others it was a self-conscious cinematic drudge, another nail in the coffin of the film d'auteur.  The critics' ambivalence towards the film is reflected both in the fact that it was only moderately successful at the box office (attracting just 0.8 million spectators, less than half of what Pialat's previous film Police had achieved) and the fact that it failed to win any of the seven Césars it was nominated for in 1988.  When the film was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987 (the first French film to do so in twenty years), the reaction from some was openly hostile - Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire had been the favourite for the top prize.  Amid catcalls and whistles, Pialat shook his fist at the audience and said: "If you don't like me, I can tell you that I don't like you either."

To this day, Sous le soleil de satan is a film that divides critical opinion, although its supporters are gaining the upper hand.  Since he died in 2003, Pialat's oeuvre has undergone a substantial reappraisal and his crucial part in re-energising the auteur tradition in French cinema in the late 1980s is gaining currency.  Sous le soleil de satan is not Pialat's most accessible film but it is unquestionably a major work, not only because of its inspired rendering of a fine work of French literature, but because of its willingness to defy the sloppy conventions of mainstream cinema.  By forcing actors to act, by using the camera as more than a stylistic device, and by respecting the intelligence of his audience, Maurice Pialat imposed his own rigorous aesthetic on French cinema and, in doing so, not only helped to bring greater credibility to the film d'auteur, but also influenced many others who would follow his example.

Film Synopsis

In a rural village in the north of France in the 1920s, an inexperienced Catholic priest, Donissan, is beginning to have doubts about his suitability for the priesthood.  In desperation, he turns to his superior, the abbot Menou-Segrais, who assures him that his present doubts are a temporary aberration.  Whilst crossing open countryside to get to a neighbouring parish, Donissan is met by a strange horse trader, who reveals himself to be the Devil himself.  Donissan then encounters Germaine Malhorty, a 16-year-old girl who is known locally as Mouchette.  Donissan divines that Mouchette has shot dead her lover and urges her to repent.  Instead of confessing her crimes, Mouchette commits suicide, prompting Donissan to lay her mutilated corpse on a church altar.  As a country priest in an obscure hamlet, Donissan acquires the reputation of a living saint, but his doubts return when he is summoned by a grieving family to resurrect their recently deceased son...