Director: Robert Bresson
Writers: Georges Bernanos, Robert Bresson
Photography: Ghislain Cloquet
Music: Jean Wiener
Editor: Raymond Lamy
Models: Nadine Nortier, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Marie Cardinal, Paul Hebert, Jean Vimenet, Marie Susini
The internet is not particularly helping me with the title of this picture by director and cowriter Robert Bresson. Mouchette, a favorite of Kelly Reichardt and Andrei Tarkovsky (not to mention the Criterion company), has surprisingly few "also known as" versions of the title listed on IMDb. Bresson, or someone, was not budging on this one. So Google Translate says it means "handkerchief" in French while other dictionaries describe an architectural feature. "Mouchet" means "speckle" and "mouche" means "fly" (noun), which both seem closer to the intent here. Wikipedia weighs in with "little fly." It appears thus to be an affectionate (and/or demeaning) name, like "sweetie" or "kiddo," for the main character, a girl of about 14 (though played by a 19-year-old, Nadine Nortier). Mouchette and her family come from an impoverished and abusive background in the French countryside and this movie is the story of her life—sad, grim, and short (I think—the ending is ambiguous of course).
In keeping with Bresson's aesthetic, Nortier and most of the other players are amateurs who basically appeared only in this picture (though Jean-Luc Godard may have borrowed a couple of them for Weekend, another movie from 1967, and Jean-Claude Guilbert is also in the 1966 Au hasard Balthazar). I respect this aesthetic as an aspect of naturalism, even when it's Jack Webb deploying it, but I'm not sure the desired effect always comes through. Professionals may come with artifice but they also tend to have theatrical skills. Bresson's use of amateurs is further undermined by an evident requirement of being beautiful. This frankly baffles me as in effect it only piles on the artifice, which I thought he was against. Bunuel's Los Olvidados, for example, with its mix of grotesques as well as natural beauties, works much better as naturalism.
The internet is not particularly helping me with the title of this picture by director and cowriter Robert Bresson. Mouchette, a favorite of Kelly Reichardt and Andrei Tarkovsky (not to mention the Criterion company), has surprisingly few "also known as" versions of the title listed on IMDb. Bresson, or someone, was not budging on this one. So Google Translate says it means "handkerchief" in French while other dictionaries describe an architectural feature. "Mouchet" means "speckle" and "mouche" means "fly" (noun), which both seem closer to the intent here. Wikipedia weighs in with "little fly." It appears thus to be an affectionate (and/or demeaning) name, like "sweetie" or "kiddo," for the main character, a girl of about 14 (though played by a 19-year-old, Nadine Nortier). Mouchette and her family come from an impoverished and abusive background in the French countryside and this movie is the story of her life—sad, grim, and short (I think—the ending is ambiguous of course).
In keeping with Bresson's aesthetic, Nortier and most of the other players are amateurs who basically appeared only in this picture (though Jean-Luc Godard may have borrowed a couple of them for Weekend, another movie from 1967, and Jean-Claude Guilbert is also in the 1966 Au hasard Balthazar). I respect this aesthetic as an aspect of naturalism, even when it's Jack Webb deploying it, but I'm not sure the desired effect always comes through. Professionals may come with artifice but they also tend to have theatrical skills. Bresson's use of amateurs is further undermined by an evident requirement of being beautiful. This frankly baffles me as in effect it only piles on the artifice, which I thought he was against. Bunuel's Los Olvidados, for example, with its mix of grotesques as well as natural beauties, works much better as naturalism.
But maybe that's the point here, a kind of anti-aesthetic? Godard himself had some fun secretly making the trailer for Mouchette, where he reduces it to constituent elements and calls it "a film that is Christian and sadistic." The trailer is Godard's own brand of pure artifice. I say the people in Mouchette are beautiful but they are also worked over to signify impoverishment—their clothes are rags, Mouchette's hair is combed Pippi Longstocking style, and she is often dirty, literally daubed with dark smears. There are no makeup credits for Mouchette, but costume and wardrobe are credited to Odette Le Barbenchon, who actually was closer to a professional.
Beautiful people simply are Bresson's preference—that's the given. It's comically reminiscent of the chestnut that if you have to marry someone, why not marry someone rich? If you have to cast people in your movie, why not make them beautiful people? This funny paired impulse, beautiful + amateur, is mitigated for me in other Bresson pictures by their circumstances. A donkey cannot be beautiful, which saves Balthazar (the only Bresson so far that I genuinely like as opposed to hold some wavering admiration for). Pickpocket details criminality in interesting documentary ways and A Man Escaped is ultimately about busting out of prison. The sullen beauty of the characters in those movies can amount to its own type of artifice, but other aspects are still worth the odd tones.
I don't know the novel Bresson adapted by Georges Bernanos but it's probably a safe bet it works better than Bresson's treatment. There's no question Mouchette's life is hard: her mother is dying, her father is drunken and abusive, she is rejected at school by peers, teachers, and administrators. She's often dirty and obviously can't comb her hair (though I must say the dishevelment still somehow feels fashionable, maybe it's the French trappings that are fooling me). She lives like a boy in many ways but she's not really a tomboy. She is caught in the woods and raped by a local poacher. She has a beautiful voice when she sings, although she gets smacked around at school when she misses notes. There's a terrible scene here of a wounded, dying rabbit, a kind of visual stand-in for Mouchette and thus poetic in a way. But it was at least as unsettling to look at as the cat torture scenes in Satantango. Mouchette can also change gears into a jarringly modern scene in an amusement park with bumper cars, which reminds us this picture was made in 1967, not 1937, the year the novel was published.
Mouchette and her family are reviled and loathed in the village for their poverty. Her father takes it out on her. There's a baby that needs tending with the mother sick and dying. Bresson reminds us how profoundly disturbing a baby's cries are—another part of this movie that is hard to get through. Mouchette has a terrible life but the problem with Mouchette, for me anyway, is that Bresson's aesthetic fights against getting that across. It's as if naturalism, the ostensible mode of narrative, were too gauche or something. Mouchette feels like it is constantly running away from the impact of the abuses Mouchette lives with. Bresson prefers distance over immediacy but distance is a certain death in naturalism, which thrives when its themes, such as poverty, are vivid and visceral. We see Mouchette's misery but it's much harder to feel it. On the other hand, it is stunningly beautiful at the level of the surface of the image. And it is mercifully short. In the end Mouchette rolls down a hill into a stream, there's a splash, and she disappears. There's not even a "Fin," just a dark screen and music by Monteverdi.
Beautiful people simply are Bresson's preference—that's the given. It's comically reminiscent of the chestnut that if you have to marry someone, why not marry someone rich? If you have to cast people in your movie, why not make them beautiful people? This funny paired impulse, beautiful + amateur, is mitigated for me in other Bresson pictures by their circumstances. A donkey cannot be beautiful, which saves Balthazar (the only Bresson so far that I genuinely like as opposed to hold some wavering admiration for). Pickpocket details criminality in interesting documentary ways and A Man Escaped is ultimately about busting out of prison. The sullen beauty of the characters in those movies can amount to its own type of artifice, but other aspects are still worth the odd tones.
I don't know the novel Bresson adapted by Georges Bernanos but it's probably a safe bet it works better than Bresson's treatment. There's no question Mouchette's life is hard: her mother is dying, her father is drunken and abusive, she is rejected at school by peers, teachers, and administrators. She's often dirty and obviously can't comb her hair (though I must say the dishevelment still somehow feels fashionable, maybe it's the French trappings that are fooling me). She lives like a boy in many ways but she's not really a tomboy. She is caught in the woods and raped by a local poacher. She has a beautiful voice when she sings, although she gets smacked around at school when she misses notes. There's a terrible scene here of a wounded, dying rabbit, a kind of visual stand-in for Mouchette and thus poetic in a way. But it was at least as unsettling to look at as the cat torture scenes in Satantango. Mouchette can also change gears into a jarringly modern scene in an amusement park with bumper cars, which reminds us this picture was made in 1967, not 1937, the year the novel was published.
Mouchette and her family are reviled and loathed in the village for their poverty. Her father takes it out on her. There's a baby that needs tending with the mother sick and dying. Bresson reminds us how profoundly disturbing a baby's cries are—another part of this movie that is hard to get through. Mouchette has a terrible life but the problem with Mouchette, for me anyway, is that Bresson's aesthetic fights against getting that across. It's as if naturalism, the ostensible mode of narrative, were too gauche or something. Mouchette feels like it is constantly running away from the impact of the abuses Mouchette lives with. Bresson prefers distance over immediacy but distance is a certain death in naturalism, which thrives when its themes, such as poverty, are vivid and visceral. We see Mouchette's misery but it's much harder to feel it. On the other hand, it is stunningly beautiful at the level of the surface of the image. And it is mercifully short. In the end Mouchette rolls down a hill into a stream, there's a splash, and she disappears. There's not even a "Fin," just a dark screen and music by Monteverdi.
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