Film Review
Director Jean-Pierre Melville provoked a fair amount of controversy
with his fifth feature,
Léon
Morin, prêtre, an uncompromising adaptation of
Béatrix Beck's award-winning novel of the same title.
Whilst his film was favourably received in some quarters (it was
awarded the Grand Prix at the 1961 Venice Film Festival), others
condemned it for its perceived immoral content (a woman having sexual
fantasies over a priest and suggestive references to lesbianism).
Influenced by the bad press the film garnered, the cinema-going public
gave it a wide berth.
It was not many years after the film's muted release that critical
opinion changed drastically (presumably in the light of Melville's
subsequent successes) and today
Léon
Morin, prêtre is considered an important work in the
director's oeuvre, one his most incisive and profound explorations of
the human psyche.
The film is the second of three films made by Melville which are set at
the time of the Nazi Occupation of France, the others being
Le Silence de la Mer (1949) and
L'Armée des ombres
(1969).
The theme that directly connects these three films (and
relates them to the director's other work) is the idea of
resistance through rigorous adherence to a personal moral code or belief system;
this was a subject that was dear to Melville's heart as he had
actively supported the French Resistance during the Second World
War. Here, the antagonists are not wartime enemies, as they are
in the other two films, but a man and a woman who inhabit completely
different worlds and who are irresistibly drawn to one another - he by
a desire to save another soul, she by desire
tout court. Both characters
are complex, morally ambiguous individuals who manage to delude
themselves as their friendship develops into something deeper and far
less innocent. The priest, Léon Morin, emerges as
something of a hypocrite, a kind of intellectual Don Juan who
consciously uses his obvious sexual charms to lure lonely women into
church so that he can make good Catholics of them. Morin is
visibly aware of the power he exerts over his female parishioners, yet
he chastises them as though they were demonically possessed
as soon as they start making amorous advances. The main female protagonist, Barny,
is just as morally confused - she allows Morin to make a convert of
her, not because she believes in God, but because the alternative that
she so desperately craves, sexual conquest, is denied her. Morin
wants Barny's soul; she merely wants his body. Neither desire can
be fulfilled, and so the quiet game of seduction and resistance is
played out for as long as possible, ending, appropriately, once the
Nazis have withdrawn from the town.
What makes this such a compelling film are the extraordinary
performances from its two lead actors, Jean-Paul Belmondo and
Emmanuelle Riva. Both actors had recently achieved international
recognition through two early films of the French New Wave - the former
in Jean-Luc Godard's
À bout de souffle
(1960), the latter in Alain Resnais's
Hiroshima mon amour
(1959). Belmondo is perfectly cast as the young priest that
no woman can resist, and delivers what is easily one of his finest
performances (a model of restraint and sensitivity compared with what
he would contribute to many of his subsequent films).
Although Belmondo and Melville had a strained working
relationship, they would work together on two further films,
Le Doulos (1962) and
L'Aîné des Ferchaux (1963).
Emmanuelle Riva's portrayal of a woman tormented by unrequited love is equally arresting
and gives the film its harrowing realism and poignancy. Both
performances are complemented by the film's austere realist design, the
bleakness of the wartime setting underlined by the work of Melville's
trusted cinematographer Henri Decaë.
Léon Morin, prêtre is
a powerfully moving study in desire and moral conflict, arguably the
darkest and most unsettling of all Jean-Pierre Melville's films.
© James Travers 2011
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Next Jean-Pierre Melville film:
Le Doulos (1962)
Film Synopsis
With France under Nazi occupation, life goes on as usual in a small provincial
town, the only novelty being the presence of German soldiers in the streets.
Here, a young widow, Barny, scrapes by as best she can to support herself
and her infant daughter. She is both an atheist and a communist and
believes that her view of the world is on a far sounder basis than that offered
by any religion. To test this conviction, she intends pursuing a moral
argument with a Catholic priest. Entering a church, Barny is met by
a priest who, to her surprise, is not only young and good-looking, but also
remarkably eloquent.
Léon Morin is not the complacent churchman that the widow had been
expecting, the kind that mumbles empty platitudes and resorts to quoting the
scripture when reasoned discourse fails. His arguments are as intelligent
and lucid as they are persuasive, and for every objection Barny raises against
the Christian faith he has a ready, well thought-out counter argument.
Is it the intellectual rigour with which he defends his corner that makes
the young woman so keen to continue their stimulating conversations, or is
it that she is beginning to succumb to a more earthy form of attraction?
Unaware that Barny may be falling in love with him, Morin goes on seeing
her, welcoming the occasion to test his own beliefs against an alternative
moral system that appears just as logically consistent, whilst offering few
of the comforts of his own faith. Both are tempted by the other's arguments
but they both resist giving ground. In the end, these two equally matched
opponents find that their beliefs have been strengthened, not weakened, by
the encounter, which must end with the Liberation of France. Barny
and Léon go their separate ways, with at least one of them certain
they will meet again, in this world or the next...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.