Review of Mouchette (1967) by Lee B — 16 Nov 2007

One of Bresson's several masterpieces, Mouchette is the tale of a young girl in a French village whose mother is dying and whose father is a feckless alcoholic who is totally disinterested in her welfare.

Her isolation is compunded by lack of sympathy from the rest of the village, notably the schoolchildren who make her a pariah. Bresson turns Mouchette into a saint through her suffering, and is considered a companion film to Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), which featured the mistreatment of a donkey by a village.

Using non-actors and real locations, it predates the social realism of the Dardenne brothers, and whilst it might sound pretty grim and hard going, it's very absorbing.