Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne) is a film about anguish, both physical and spiritual. Like so many of Bresson’s films, it features a central protagonist who is adrift in a difficult and painful world, searching for grace and finding only cynicism, mistrust, and rejection. The harsh realities unearthed in the film are obvious, but Bresson conveys them with the kind of poetic minimalism that elevates the mundane into true art; he is an extraordinary alchemist, and his achievement here is one of great emotional weight that stays with you long after the film is over.

Based on the celebrated 1936 novel by Roman Catholic writer George Bernanos (who died two years before the film was made), Diary of a Country Priest tells the simple story of a young priest and his involvement in a rural community. The priest is played by newcomer Claude Laydu, whose boyish face and sad, intriguing eyes convey his character’s deep spiritual recesses and poignant idealism. He is assigned to a tiny parish in Ambricourt, a country village in the desolate north of postwar France. Instead of feeling welcome, the priest is immediately placed on the outside of the village’s social sphere, and most of his attempts to work his way inside are met with resistance, if not outright hostility. Bresson quickly conveys the priest’s outsider status in the film’s opening segment, when he happens across a wealthy Count (Jean Riveyre) locked in an adulterous kiss with his mistress. The look of disdain the passes across the Count’s face and the priest’s immediate withdrawal become emblematic of the relationship between this man of God and his parishioners.

The Count’s family becomes a crucial testing ground for the young priest, as he is drawn into their tortured inner world. In particular, the priest attempts to reach out to the Countess (Marie-Monique Arkell), who is haunted by the death of her young son and has long since resigned herself to her husband’s selfish, adulterous ways. The priest is successful in bringing her some sense of peace—in fact, she is his one success—but that is tinged by the fact that the Countess’ young daughter, Chantal (Nicole Ladmiral), misinterprets the priest’s actions and hates him as a result.

The priest also has trouble with another child, Séraphita (Martine Lemaire ), who, for reasons that are never entirely clear, despises the priest and makes it a point to get him in trouble. Although Séraphita is just a child, she is presented as someone capable of deep derision and insidiousness—she stands as a symbolic rejection of Christ’s declaration that the kingdom of God belongs to children.

Most of the film’s meaning is conveyed in the priest’s dutiful journal entries, the pages of which Bresson often uses as a transition device between scenes. The priest’s voice-over narration provides a map of his mounting anguish, as he tries in vain to reach out to those who do not want him. Even his superior, the Priest of Torcy (André Guibert), tells him that he has no common sense, knows nothing of other people, and “cuts an odd figure” in his own parish. The young priest is also increasingly crippled by a painful stomach ailment that has reduced his diet to little more than bread and wine. Thus, his spiritual condition is deeply intertwined with his physical condition; in a sense, they are one in the same. As his stomach deteriorates, so do his idealism and faith. Even though the priest is clearly presented as a Christ figure, he is one who is infinitely more human and prone to doubt.

Yet, even though Diary of a Country Priest is about anguish, it is not ultimately about failure, even though the priest can be seen as one. After all, he struggles mightily to do his work, yet Ambricourt is virtually unchanged by the end of the film, the people still going about their petty lives with little if any spiritual transformation. However, the film, after all, is not about them—it is about the priest and his spiritual journey. The fact that he is largely unsuccessful in his work does not make him a failure as a man or as a follower of God, and the fact that the last words on his lips are “All is grace” are testament to the endurance of his spiritual commitment. While it is possible to see this line as ironic, it is also possible to see it as the priest’s reward for his labors. Despite everything he has suffered, he realizes that the spiritual is always greater than the physical. Even as his health deteriorates to the point of death, his soul—that intangible, mysterious essence that Bresson so desperately wanted to capture through his art—survives.

Copyright ©2004 James Kendrick