Rent Diary of a Country Priest (1951)

The Power of Faith - Diary of a Country Priest review by ST

This subtle but intriguing film eavesdrops on the inner reflective life of a rural curate tending to the awkward and suspicious residents of his isolated parish. Full of doubt and afflicted by a mystery illness, the protagonist is drawn into a tense set of confidences and disavowals within the family of the local squire whose spirited daughter resents her father's philandering ways. Called to the house to tend to the squire's wife, the humble priest undertakes the faith healing of his life as he enables her to confront and overcome her grief at the loss of a child in the face of incredible hostility and resistance. A moving portrayal of the power of faith, the priest's weaknesses and failings are ultimately seen as part of an integrity that recognises and accepts the frailty of the human condition as a precondition of our relationship to God -- a moral courage which requires great responsibility. A film with an important message almost lost in contemporary life.

The eternal battle is the one fought between hope and despair. - Diary of a Country Priest review by ML

I watched this film because movie critic Roger Ebert cited it as an influence on Paul Schrader's excellent 2017 feature "First Reformed", even selecting it as one of his 'Great Movies'. It's worth watching just to see how much Schrader has borrowed from Bresson, and how wisely. In both films, the protagonist is a struggling and isolated priest in a small dead-end parish who decides to keep a journal. Bresson's film opens slowly, but sit patiently through the first half hour and it starts to draw you in. Bresson's priest is neither a hero nor an anti-hero. He is simply a man, unsuited to parish work. Despite realising this, he never gives up hope, but the community closes ranks against him. Trying to fulfil his task becomes his Road to Calvary. This film lingers in the memory.

Faith, Fatigue and the Loneliest Parish in France - Diary of a Country Priest review by griggs

A young priest arrives in a small rural parish and almost at once feels out of place. The locals are cold, the girls at catechism treat him like a nuisance, and every attempt to do some good seems to end in awkwardness or misunderstanding. Because the film is shaped by his journal, we stay inside that anxious, exhausted mind throughout. It feels less like a normal drama than a record of someone wearing himself down.

What got me most was how Bresson makes spiritual crisis feel painfully ordinary. Faith here is not lofty sermon material. It is stomach pain, fatigue, social embarrassment, and the effort of getting through another day when even basic duties feel heavy. Claude Laydu is excellent at conveying that frailty; he looks as if a stiff breeze might finish the job.

I admired this more than I loved it, but I admired it a lot. The austerity, the severe beauty, the refusal to force emotion: it is all recognisably Bresson, and you can already see the path toward A Man Escaped. By the end, I was impressed, slightly moved, and as drained as the film clearly wanted me to be.