Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)
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4. Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)
1945's "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne," only Robert Bresson's second film of his career, is perhaps his most un-Bressonian film. Playing more like an Ophuls film, "Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne" centers on a scorn woman who seeks vengeance against her lover for the crime of falling out of love with her. She financially helps a prostitute and her mother escape their destitute situation, only to maniacally arrange her lover to fall for the young daughter. After marrying her, the woman reveals to her former lover that his new bride is a prostitute. Although the film is full of stark lushness, the tone of the film is rather bleak. The soul of our protagonist is corrupted by hatred and seeks a vendetta and an innocent mother and daughter in financial destitution gets caught up in her wrath. If you look at the film through the lens of France's occupation at the time, you may see it for the pitch black depiction of a seething and unscrupulous human soul that chooses to step over the meek for the sake of its own hateful vendettas. For that, the film becomes a product of its time and its melodrama offers a blackened look at the despair happening in France.
3. Pickpocket (1959)
The plot of Robert Bresson's 1959 film "Pickpocket" is deceptively simple: an economically destitute and unemployed Parisian man becomes addicted to the art of pickpocketed, despite the condemnation from the few people he knows in his life. What's so interesting about this simplistic depiction is Bresson's lifeless and emotional landscape he places his titular pickpocket. A world of cold emptiness that provides nothing but isolation and loneliness, our pickpocket continues to perform his criminal deeds simply to feel something, simply to 'feel alive in a world becoming dead.' It's a film that is drenched in the post-war malaise of a French and overall European society that had become all too empty and dead. Bresson's "Pickpocket" has inspired innumerable filmmakers to come and is considered to be one of Bresson's masterpieces.
2. Mouchette (1967)
Often considered one of Robert Bresson's best films, 1967's "Mouchette" takes the typical minimalist style that Bresson employs and elevates to something truly beyond reproach. Centering on a young named Mouchette growing up in a small village, the film makes sure to demonstrate to its audience the levels of cruelty every character is willing to exert without any logic or reason. The mechanical manner of the non-professional actors' performances, the detachment from emotionality by Bresson's visual renderings, and the overall tone of a cold, empty existence all allow the film to paint a tapestry of human cruelty full of senselessness. Similar in theme to his previous film, 1966's "Au Hasard Balthazar," Bresson's slight change to the tone of having our protagonist victim just as cruel as the environment around her differs dramatically from the saintly donkey of "Balthazar." It is a pitch black and cold film that you can't shake after watching and will leave you existentially empty about the very nature of existence and the human soul.
1. A Man Escaped (1956)
The film that film scholars will often consider Robert Bresson's masterpiece is his 1956 film "A Man Escaped." On paper, the film sounds relatively simple: a French Resistance fighter is thrown into a Nazi internment camp and attempts to escape. Throughout the film, we watch as our prisoner carefully and conspicuously try various methods of escape using various tools at his disposal. Despite this simplicity, the film feels as though you are watching a high-wire act. Every action and movement by our prisoner becomes heightened and suspenseful through Bresson's claustrophobic and restrictive direction. Every sound our protagonist makes sounds like lightening bolts, as we suspensefully hang on every moment, hoping he doesn't get discovered. What's even more great about this film is its underlying existentialism hidden under the tactile plot. Through these various attempts to continue his escape, we feel a sense of resiliency. We feel a sense of unyielding hope, despite the insurmountable odds, setbacks, and pushbacks. In the post-war landscape of nihilistic viewpoints by many European countries, even in the films of Bresson himself, Bresson chooses resiliency and hope as his moniker for "A Man Escaped."
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