Cheap Diary of a Country Priest - Criterion Collection (DVD) (Claude Laydu, Jean Riveyre, Nicole Ladmiral) (Robert Bresson) Price

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Customer Reviews of Diary of a Country Priest - Criterion Collection

Ehhhh
This is far from Bresson's best work. In fact, after having read the book, I found this film a disappointment. While it is certainly worth watching, and is packed with atmosphere (the lead actor is phenomenal with what he is given, which isn't much) it seems like more of a chore than anything else. Bresson does not incorporate many of the most crucial scenes from Bernanno's novel, and the dialogue seems rushed and forced. This is more of an expressionist film than anything else, and I suppose Bresson figured that Laydu's facial movements would compensate for the lack of continuity in the film. The most memorable scenes take place with Laydu and the angry young girl, but even these scenes do not live up to the text. The ending of the novel, heart rendingly powerful, is trampled on: Bresson merely shows us a cross with some dialogue. "All is grace" does not have any touching quality here. This isn't a classic, but I would say it is mandatory to watch simply for Laydu's performance, which, while a little ambiguous in its wealth of emotion and suffering, is unforgettable. Rent it.

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A Film of Intense Luminosity
Bresson's screen adaptation of Bernanos' novel brilliantly plumbs the depths of one soul's quest for redemption. This film is a stirring masterpiece to be viewed time and again even by those to whom the overt religiosity may seem somewhat daunting. As the doomed country priest persecuted to martyrdom by virtually everyone around him, Claude Laydu turns in a remarkably nuanced performance. But it is Bresson's humanism which suffuses the work with its unique ardor and beauty. Needless to say a film of this depth of feeling could never be produced in today's rampantly commercial celluloid world! Forever Diary of a Country Priest will stand as a testament to the amazing creative genius of the peerless French director Robert Bresson.

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The state of art
Is it necessary to say this is mude film with almost unneccesary subtitles. The superb eloquence in Bresson's language supported on Bernanos'story give us the most intimate portrait of a priest in a lost village.
The poetic images are enriched by a precise dialogue. The multiple reflections derivated from the story are so many that you must see this movie several times , a priest with epic sense in a dark neighborhood. The methapors are everywhere, in the images, in the suggested ideas beyond the visual language.
In this sense nobody could give a best homage to Bresson's art that his friend Tarkovsky, who after knowing him said in Paris these wise words: If we admit that Bresson is the biggest filmaker in the world, then the filmaker who is in the second place, really is in the tenth".
I sincerely recomend to get one work of Andre Bazin titled What's is the cinema? where Bazin (who belonged to Cahiers du Cinema) offers an amazing and exhaustive analysis about this film.