This post has been on my mind for most of the past week, but circumstances have prevented me from sitting down to write it until now. Let me state from the outset that I don't have a proper review in mind. What I've been contemplating is how to balance the pros and cons of what will undoubtedly be a more negative appraisal of Robert Bresson's Mouchette than I am accustomed to giving films in this space. My tendency has always been to emphasize the positive in my experience of watching movies, since I'm not the kind of reader who particularly enjoys harsh criticism of other people's work, especially when it's obvious that they've put a lot of time and effort into crafting a film. For those movies that do appear to be sloppy, overly formulaic or poorly executed for any number of reasons, I'm usually content to just let them pass without giving them the benefit of my prolonged consideration or an articulation of reasons as to why I think their project sucks. There are plenty of bloggers and podcasters out there who enjoy that kind of thing, and who are much better (i.e. more entertaining) in delivering their snarky, scathing takedowns than I will ever be. (And if you want to read a more substantive critical analysis of Mouchette, there's no shortage of that sort of thing. Here's an paper that extends to 23 pages in .pdf format, with footnotes.)
But the fact remains, I was deeply disturbed after revisiting Mouchette earlier this week, and that uneasiness has not subsided even after viewing all the supplements, listening to the commentary track and giving the film another look just to make sure that my reaction was justified. I also just revisited my own review of Au hasard Balthazar written this past January, where I leveled some of the same criticisms of Bresson's method there that I could easily expound upon here. I will do my best to avoid repetition of that critique, just in the interests of saving time and getting to the main point I want to make here: that Mouchette appears to me to be the product of a marvelously gifted artist who also happened to be, at least in this stage of his life, a dirty old man.
The impulses that propelled me toward this conclusion were found in a few key shots early on in the film: one was that seemingly gratuitous scene where a group of what looked like five year old girls twirled backwards on an iron bar while wearing skirts, exposing their panties and rear ends for several seconds, for what purpose? Understanding Bresson's filmmaking techniques, I can't help but wonder how many retakes did he demand from the girls to capture that bit? To me, that just felt wrong. There were also a few other segments where my "creeper" radar was triggered, as Mouchette adjusted her stockings or was positioned in front of the camera in order to get a bit more of the upskirt effect than the narrative progress of the plot seemed to call for. Finally, there was this article I found after doing just a bit of internet searching to learn more about Bresson's personal life and sexual proclivities, an interview with Au hasard Balthazar's lead female "model" (following Bresson's terminology) Anne Wiazemsky, which confirmed at least a few of my darker suspicions regarding Bresson's personal ethos and the sense of entitlement he may have felt as one of cinema's most highly regarded creative talents.
Let me back up that assertion by just doing some simple math. Robert Bresson was born in 1901, so that put him squarely in his mid-60s when he made both Mouchette and Au hasard Balthazar. Each story has as a main component the sexual maturation of a teenage girl, even though the earlier film has the travails and sufferings of a donkey as its purported central focus. While there's a legitimate artistic objective, as well as ample cultural justification, in drawing attention to the difficulties that young women face in a patriarchal society that too often objectifies and exploits them to the point of inflicting long term damage (or even prematurely ending their lives), I got a distinct vibe from both films that Bresson's interest in the topic also had a more prurient angle. In Mouchette, my sensitivities were provoked on several occasions. I'll spell them out in more detail very shortly, but first, let me explain my credentials on the topic. I've worked in the field of residential treatment for over 25 years, with a dozen of those years spent as supervisor of a home for teenage girls. This experience has made me acutely aware of the cruel judgments and burdens placed upon them, especially when they come from backgrounds of poverty and broken homes, with reputedly loose morals, according to the dictates of respectable bourgeois society.
Having worked with hundreds of young women who've experienced sexual abuse, physical and emotional trauma and chauvinistic oppression that severely surpasses the sufferings that we see endured by Mouchette, there were just too many aspects of her behavior in this film that simply didn't ring true for me. Now I recognize the value and necessity of artistic license, where dialogue and actions become idealized, rarefied and reduced to their essence for the sake of making an impact on a broader audience that has not fully shared in the kinds of situations they see on the screen. I'm sure that I've watched a lot of war movies and other "behind the scenes" scenarios that have gripped me with enormous power, even though people who've lived through similar events could tell me "that's not what it's really like." But I do have an informed working knowledge, based on firsthand reports, of what it's like to be an unfairly ridiculed, judged, condemned and abused teenage girl. And there's something rather perversely idealized about Mouchette's odd combination of active rejection of social norms (her nonconformity in music class, the after-school bombardment, with flawless accuracy, of her schoolmates with dirt clods, and her general stubborn defiance of authority whenever she's told what to do or spoken to with condescension) and her passivity in the presence of her abusers (her father, her teacher, the drunk poacher she claims to love, after he rapes her in response to the tender comfort and support she provides to him after his seizure.)
It's one thing to grapple with the fact that the girl, still in the midst of pubescence, is forced to submit to predatory sexual violence inflicted by a much older man, but the poetic serenity of her final submissive embrace of the man, in the warmth of a crackling fire in a charmingly rustic shack in the woods... Sorry, I just have a difficult time accepting the necessity of how that scene was portrayed. In my reckoning, Bresson lent it more pathos and sublimity than such a horrendous violation deserved, even though I also recognize he could have gone much more explicit with it (and I'm sure many directors have over the subsequent decades. Still, few of them receive the kind of praise as "spiritually transcendent auteurs" that is routinely heaped upon Bresson.)
Please trust me; I'm familiar with the characteristic traits of Stockholm Syndrome, and I've seen numerous instances where young girls have shown unflinching loyalty to men (and women) who have ruthlessly manipulated them into circumstances that would utterly disgust readers if I were to describe them in further detail. So I'm not saying that a situation like what we see in Mouchette could never happen. My reservations are based more on what seems to be a degree of too much romanticizing and even fetishism in regard to what she and other girls in her predicament have had to endure.
And a lot of that uneasiness on my part has to do with the film's conclusion. It's a famous scene, where our protagonist, having basically run away from home, been labeled a slut by one of the women in the town who intuitively recognize what's happened to her (her question - "What's got into you?" - being the same interrogation that Frank Zappa asked of Suzy Creamcheese just a year earlier) and now recognizing her painful isolation from the rest of society, placidly rolls her body down the slope once, twice, three times, until she finally takes that fateful suicidal plunge into the water to end it all. The water splashed, the elegiac music kicks in, and we're all left to comprehend the aesthetic wonderment of it all, almost to the point of obliviousness that a young girl has taken her life in response to the rejection and indifference she encountered over the span of a few brief years on Earth. I'm sorry, there's just something too convenient, too smug in embracing her martyrdom, for me to fully buy into the verdict that Bresson seems intent on delivering. Sure, I can accept that he is presenting this story to us as a tragedy, as a disruptive crisis that we, as members of that respectable bourgeois society, should be concerned enough about to demand change when and wherever we can.
But I'm still made queasy by the impression that Bresson, on some level, seems to be finding a little too much satisfaction in exploring at length this predicament of young girls, hounded, repressed and vilified to the point where they see only one way out - a not-quite-virgin suicide that lends a dignified air of exquisite self-sacrifice, which somehow ennobles those of us who can mournfully bow our heads and lament at the pitiful outcome of a life so tragically wasted. I've seen more of that sort of wastefulness in real life than I care to "celebrate" in the movies, especially if it feels to me like the people in charge of telling the story are milking it for easy pathos, while also taking advantage of their audience's sentiments and emotional vulnerability in a way that seems to be extenuating the problem rather than pointing toward any kind of constructive resolution.
I can't and won't fault Bresson for drawing our attention to the appalling dilemma that the Mouchette's of the world have to somehow navigate; the awareness that films like this raise is ultimately much more positive than it is negative, and so on balance I'm glad that such a work of art exists. I still recall quite vividly my first encounter with the movie many years ago, when I checked out a copy from the library and watched it with my youngest son, just a teenager himself at that time. It's a film watching memory I still treasure. Back then, we were both quite moved and impressed by what we saw and I greatly appreciated Bresson's willingness to advocate on behalf of girls who'd experienced abuse and neglect. Since then, and with repeated exposure and prolonged contemplation, my esteem has become much more equivocal. I hope I've done a fair enough job explaining why. I know it's purely subjective, and I think I've been able to maintain a due level of respect for Bresson the artist, visionary and master of cinema. So I just offer this critique as a counter-balance to what feels to me like the kind of excessive adulation that sometimes develops in the aura of highly revered artistes. Find whatever value in it that you will.
Next: A Colt is My Passport