Robert Bresson

This energetic, enigmatic indictment of capitalism is a late masterpiece by Bresson, imbued with a fierce cinematic power and tautly positioned amid the coldly structured complexities of human behaviour. Adapted from a novella by Leo Tolstoy, Bresson’s portrait of an ordinary man driven to evermore extreme crimes by social and financial forces beyond his control […]

Robert Bresson (Au hasard Balthazar) plumbs great reservoirs of feeling with Mouchette, one of the most searing portraits of human desperation ever put on film. With a dying mother, an absent, alcoholic father, and a baby brother in need of care, the teenage Mouchette seeks solace and respite from her circumstances in the nature of […]

In one of Robert Bresson’s most admired, intriguing and influential films, resolute drifter Michel spends his days learning the art of pickpocketing and targeting the unsuspecting citizens of 1950s Paris. After his inevitable arrest (and almost immediate release) Michel reflects on the morality of crime, developing a vague theory that exceptional individuals are above the […]

The legendary story of Joan of Arc’s trial and conviction is powerfully retold in Robert Bresson’s minimalist masterpiece. Working from the official transcript of the 15th century trial, Bresson shoots Joan’s ordeal with a serene simplicity that reveals her vulnerability and her resilient faith. A transcendent and moving evocation of human suffering and spiritual liberation, […]

Robert Bresson writes and directs this 1950s French drama based on the memoirs of André Devigny. Lieutenant Fontaine (Francois Leterrier), a member of the French Resistance, is imprisoned and condemned to death by the Nazis. The film follows his attempts to escape from his cell at Montluc with the help of his teenage cellmate, François […]

A profound masterpiece from one of the most revered filmmakers in the history of cinema, Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar follows the donkey Balthazar as he is passed from owner to owner, some kind and some cruel but all with motivations beyond his understanding. Balthazar, whose life parallels that of his first keeper, Marie, is […]