Mouchette
Mouchette is an impoverished girl living in a remote village in rural France. She is impoverished in more ways than one. Her alcoholic father neglects her; her terminally ill mother is bed-ridden and helpless, and her baby brother cries out for the care and attention that Mouchette finds challenging to provide, having rarely, if ever, received it herself.
In her village, at her school and even in her own family, Mouchette is an outcast; she is the symbol of disenfranchised youth, of the misunderstood, of any person or group that has been objectified, dismissed and reviled by society.
Director Robert Bresson said: "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations". The rejection she faces daily, has created in Mouchette an antagonistic attitude and incorrigible behaviour that distance her from everyone around her.
Her only intimacy is with a fellow outsider: an epileptic. She seems to sense in him the mark of “otherness” that they share. Even he, the closest she will come to having an ally in this world, is drunken and abusive. Mouchette has learnt to expect very little in life.
Her occasional wilfulness and rebellious outbursts are disheartening to watch, as we know that she will only alienate herself further. The film chronicles her ill-fated journey in this world, which proceeds painfully, relentlessly and inexorably to its logical conclusion. When it finally arrives, it happens with a touching, restrained simplicity.
Made in the wake of Au Hasard Balthazar, Bresson adopted a similar style with Mouchette – his cinematic habits having become reasonably entrenched by this stage. Similarly, he elicits realistic performances from his non-professional cast (wouldn’t it be interesting to know what became of the girl in the titular role: Nadine Nortier?).
Ultimately, Au Hasard Balthazar and Mouchette share the same brutal but poetic feel, and are generally considered to be companion pieces.
Many filmmakers could learn a great deal from the way Bresson strips his films back to their bare necessities, leaving the audience with raw but moving stories. The extras, especially those showing him working with the cast and crew, are fascinating to watch. His painstaking attention to lighting and composition is not surprising, given the end results, captured and presented monochromatically, in a characteristically understated manner.