We are presented tales whose meanings are left as unexplained as are the motives of the people in them. But relating to reality, as shown in Bresson's films, also involves, I think, clearly recognizing the deeply enigmatic nature of what is real. To interpret is to impose meaning rather than to perceive it. The obvious reason for this is that conventional happy endings are rare in his films. Yet it seems to me that his rigorous minimalism and materialistic method, which amazingly yield the most credible sense of mystery, are also causes.
Many people are uncomfortable with lucidity.
Many wish to interpret the sense of all-encompassing mystery in Bresson's films as intimations of an invisible reality behind the material universe and thus as offering hope. Yet I think it must be recognized even by such viewers that, if indeed there are such hints of the invisible in the films, both the hints and the realities are grand and awesome, not mawkish or easily comforting, and that the way to knowledge of them can be quite terrible. It is a widespread and natural phenomenon for people to seek some escape from materiality and its concomitant, death, and to look for hope in spiritual realities. But, in my opinion, to avoid materiality in this search is to fall into sentimentality at best and lunacy at worst. It recognizes the resulting inescapably enigmatic nature of the universe to human beings.