MOUCHETTE - DVD review

In Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," an all-powerful computer known as AM rules over the lives of the only five surviving humans. AM inflicts random tortures on them, toying with its victims in a cruel game whose rules change at the computer's whim. AM holds the cards, and there is no way out. Ted, the story's protagonist, finds his only possible redemption by killing his companions before AM can react. He is rewarded for his act of mercy with an eternity (literally) of suffering at the hands of AM who turns him into a gelatinous blob, assuring that he can never kill himself.

There is no evil super-computer in Robert Bresson's 1967 masterpiece "Mouchette," but the rules are stacked just as heavily against the titular protagonist. Mouchette (Nadine Nortier) is a teenage peasant girl with a dying mother and an abusive, alcoholic father. With her raggedy hand-me-down clothes and clogs two sizes too big, she finds no friends in school either, nor does she invite them, preferring instead to lob mudballs at her classmates during recess. Whether it's a desperate cry for help or sheer spite, the saddest part is that the other girls don't even care enough to retaliate. Mouchette simply means nothing to them. The self-absorbed adults in town likewise have no time for the dirty little poor girl or her troubles.

Mouchette's days consist of listless days at school and equally listless nights at home, where she is expected to handle all the household chores and take care of the baby, while her no-account father and brother smuggle alcohol, mostly for their own consumption. At least these quotidian rituals provide some minor respite, but Mouchette still aches for an escape or at least a temporary refuge from the tedium.

She finds some relief in her daily walks through the forest, taking the long way home (for understandable reasons) but this "green place" offers her only the modest gift of solitude, not redemption. On one such walk, Mouchette is waylaid by a rainstorm (she calls it a cyclone, but nobody else believes her) which brings her face to face with Arsène (Jean-Claude Guilbert), a local poacher. Arsène believes he has just killed Mathieu (Jean Vimenet) in a drunken argument. Most of the adult interactions in "Mouchette" involve copious amounts of alcohol; it's a disease that stalks the countryside like the Black Death of 500 years previous. Arsène enlists Mouchette's aid in providing him an alibi. She readily agrees, but their conversation still turns ugly, and Arsène rapes her. In the morning, Mouchette slinks back home just in time to see her mother die.

That's a rotten day by any standard, but it provides a form of liberation for Mouchette as well. She has been pushed beyond caring about any social niceties, about anyone's rules. When the falsely pious townsfolk show her sympathy for her mother's death, she figuratively spits in her faces, and literally treads mud all over their nice, pretty rugs. But poor Mouchette's awakening still finds her with the same limited options she had before. She's a rebel with nothing to rebel against, simply because nobody cares. Like Ted in the Ellison story, the rules just won't allow Mouchette any way to win in this world, so her only choice is to leave it on her own terms. And so she does.

Ted's sacrifice was an act of heroism, but Mouchette's suicide can only be seen as an act of desperation from a girl whose limited imagination afforded her no other choice. In Bresson's prior films, his characters achieved a state of grace in their suffering, but it's hard to say the same of Mouchette. Her loss is simply tragic, painful, desperate, with no redeeming aspect. As a big "fuck you" to the town, it will go unheeded due to the prevalent apathy. Even dear old dad will use it as little more than another excuse to get piss-drunk. At best, it can be seen as Mouchette's defiant act of autonomy, taking control of her body and her life in a way the rotted-besotted town patriarchy would never allow. Cold comfort.

The sound design of the film is typically Bressonian. Off-screen noises play a large role in the structure of the film. We constantly hear the sound of trucks rumbling by; they are never seen except when their headlights play across the wall of Mouchette's hovel. The modern world is encroaching on this insular town, which is doubtless on its last drunken legs. Bresson also uses music sparingly, with Monteverdi's "Magnificat" serving as the only non-diegetic music in the film.

As usual, Bresson used a cast of mostly non-professional actors whom he considered more as "models" than performers. Nortier is a typical Bressonian model, coached to act and move with as little inflection as possible. She moves slowly, walks slump-shouldered, and her face hardly ever registers emotion, with the notable exception of the bumper-car ride when Mouchette smile and laughs like a "normal" girl. Some viewers have difficulty adapting to Bresson's idiosyncratic approach to film acting, but for fans of the director (like yours truly) he seems to be the only one who ever got it right. That's an exaggeration, of course, but Bresson's singular, obstinate body of work can really be compared to no other, save for the imitators who have followed him.

By holding back so much that we typically expect to see in a film (emotive acting, for example), Bresson ultimately unleashes a powerful force that is difficult to describe. Call it transcendental, call it sublime, call it ineffable. Whatever label you choose, it has an impact like nothing else cinema has ever produced. I don't consider "Mouchette" to be first-rate Bresson, but it is still a masterpiece, like virtually everything Bresson touched.

Video

The film is presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. "Mouchette" was Bresson's last black-and-white film, and this digitally restored transfer does justice to Ghislain Cloquet's starkly beautiful photography. The image is richly textured with sharp contrasts, a first rate job by Criterion.

Audio

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Mono. Optional English subtitles support the French audio.

Extras

This single-disc Criterion release of "Mouchette" is a mild disappointment, but only when measured against the high standard previously set by the studio's release of "Au hasard Balthazar" and "Pickpocket." The commentary track by Tony Rayns is superb, as we would expect from Mr. Rayns.

The main extra feature is "Au hasard Bresson," a 30-minute documentary directed by German film critic Theodor Kotulla. Kotulla visited the set of "Mouchette" to speak with Bresson, and wound up with his gem that delves much deeper than the usual "behind-the-scenes" documentary.

"Cinéma: Travelling" is a seven-minute excerpt from a French television show which features interviews with some of the cast members of "Mouchette." Nothing special here.

The strangest extra, and possibly the most interesting to die-hard cinephiles, is an original theatrical trailer for "Mouchette" cut by Jean-Luc Godard. Godard denied making this trailer, but it's hard to believe anyone could mistake it for anything but a Godard work.

Closing Thoughts

"Mouchette" is grim, demanding viewing which requires patience even at its brisk 81 minute running length. If you have never seen a Bresson film before, don't start here. "Mouchette" is hermetic even by Bresson's standards. Try "A Man Escaped" (1956), "Pickpocket" (1959) or "Au hasard Balthazar" (1966) first before you tackle this one. I don't wish to convey the notion that Bresson is somehow esoteric or inaccessible; I don't believe that at all. His films are concise and concrete, but their surface simplicity hides the degree to which each image and sound is so densely packed, and only proper context (training, if you will) can help viewers unpack them.