#76 - Mouchette (1967, Robert Bresson)

Poor, poor Mouchette. One of my friends once described this film to me as "tearduct porn" and I can certainly see it. The companion film to Au Hasard Balthazar, Mouchette tells the story of a girl with an incomprehensibly bleak existence. Her alcoholic mother is dying and she must care for her constantly bawling baby brother. Her father beats her in public, her music teacher shoves her face into a piano, her classmates tease her and her clogs are about four sizes too big.

One night, Mouchette attempts to break free of her world and gets caught in a downpour in a forest. While there she comes across two men hunting each other and finds herself as both men's alibi in this attempted murder case.

Like Balthazar, it seems to be set in a part of France that time forgot, with Mouchette's father's ancient automobile appearing before any 1960s cars show up. Balthazar feels like the most Bressonian in its acting, at least of the half-dozen or so films of his I've seen. I'd assumed his models became chronologically more statuesque, but Mouchette isn't quite the blank slate of the previous film's Marie. Well, she is and she isn't. Although tears come down Mouchette's face quite often and we even see her laugh at the carnival, her stoic face feels like a reaction to thousands of nights like the one we just witnessed.

Sound always plays an important role in Bresson's films and Mouchette had a different approach in this area than he had previously employed. Diary of a Country Priest and Pickpocket both utilize first-person narration as well as diaries being written. Mouchette, though having a single tragic protagonist, never explicitly allows her thoughts to be heard. It provides a distance to the character that, rather than isolating us from her, gives the viewer a different approach to her suffering. Furthermore, she rarely speaks and the film has minimal dialogue overall, so one must follow her actions and interpret them as one would.

new #100: Salvatore Giuliano