Product: L' Argent [VHS] (1983)
Rating: 3.0
A Mournful Tale
Bresson has made some unparallelled films over a great part of the twentieth century. 'Balthasar' and 'Diary of A Country Priest', are right up there with my all time favourites. Friends try to convince me that 'Lancelot'(his excurison into colour) and,'L'Argent' are classics too. I can't agree. The narrative here is quite simple and the morality, so stripped back that it it feels like a Sunday School lesson.Even in 'Lancelot', where the acting was bereft of emoting, there was some degree of intimacy, that facilitated connections for me. Here, the characters are rendered as automatons, which is clearly part of Bresson's intention, but makes for some unreal, de-animated cause and effect. Interersting tale, artful photography, a bleak and discomforting fable. I wouldn't race out to catch this one, nor judge his contributions to cinema on the strength of it. He is undoubtedly in the Bunuel,Bergman, Dreyer, Tarkovsky,Kurosowa league.