Sous le soleil de Satan

Falls short of the very high mark it sets for itself, although I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's at least earnestly striving to hit that mark.

On a technical level, I loved this. Some brilliant moments of editing and sound design. On a script and content level, I loathed this.

Viewed August 6, 2021.

Capricórnio

Snooze-fest. Very slow and impenetrable film.

A fascinatingly strange movie. Depardieu doesn't even look the part of a priest, much less an Agent Of God (yes, it's *that* kind of movie), lending the entire film a delicious irony. Not all of it works -- maybe I'm just too spoiled by high-budget Hollywood films, but it seems like it's just too cheap for its ambitions -- but it's a real contribution to the medium that I'm glad I saw

My first Maurice Pialat film and it baffled and awed me. The narrative is very streamlined, cut down to plot points one after another, and yet it retained an effect. With long scenes that feel like they drift further than the length the script originally intended, the film manages to convey its religious core perfectly, even if it is 'slight', and also freaked me out with its unsettling mood at points. Its a divisive film but it worked perfectly.

Don't get why this is (or was) the most booed Palme d'Or winner of all time. Mostly a Dumont's Hors Satan about priesthood. Pretty tense, nerve-racking observation of faith and sexuality throuh the eyes of a young priest in crisis -- he believes that God is a failure and that Satan is the prince of Earth -- and a young woman who killed her boyfriend, is horny and wants abortion and suicide. Some shots are just for the ages -- black mirror, last one with the priest dead in the confessionary.

bad movie

Due to my lack of sympathy for Catholicism I fear I may be deaf to the agonized theological soul-searchings at the heart of movies like this (Pialat channels certain works by Bresson, most obviously "Diary of a Country Priest"). It still manages to be a good movie, with a good soundtrack too, but not the utterly hard-hitting stuff I'm used to from Pialat.