Part of the BAMcinématek series Bresson
Sun, May 6, 2012 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm
Directed by Robert Bresson
With Dominique Sanda, Guy Frangin
(1969) 88min, 35mm
Following his wife’s (soon-to-be-international-star Sanda, in her film debut) suicide, a pawnbroker (Frangin) searches for answers, with scenes from their loveless marriage revealed in flashback. Bresson’s first color film is an elliptical, enigmatic adaptation of a Dostoevsky short story, open to multiple interpretations, with haunting shots of empty rooms and doorways providing much of the meaning. “The repetition and heightening of such sensory data as are ordinarily screened from our perceptions renders them ghostly and unreal...life's last impressions before death, without the intervention of eschatology, reconciliation, or redemption" (Molly Haskell, The Village Voice).
