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Leon Morin, pretre (1961) - Jean-Pierre Melville
Brief Sinopsis: During an occupation of France, young faithless widow (Emmanuelle Riva) encounters a local priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and gradually starts falling in love with him.
Nowadays Melville is generally known for his stylish crime-flicks with impeccably suave characters, one of the being on my avi pick
However this could possibly be his most unusual and experimental work.
At the beggining we are introduced to Marny ( Emmanuelle Riva), also a film's narrator, who is spending most of her time fantasizing about her lesbian crush Sabine, her supervisor. One day she enters a church with intention of playing a joke on local priests. As she randomly chooses a confession room and starts to criticize Catholicism, she's baffled when father Morin( Belmondo) starts engaging in conversation about religion. After a while they develop a friendship and most of the film actually focuses on their theological discussions, which I found to be very profound and interesting, without really pushing certain agenda.
The first thing that striked me was how beautifully shot the film was, consisting of many short cuts, but also providing kind of a dream like scenery. All Melville's films I've seen so far had expectional aesthetics and Leon Morin was no exception. I especially find the zoom in shot to the confession room from the film's beggining to be rather fascinating.
Eventough the film was set during the WW2 it wasn't really about it, rather than exploring the spirituality of people during the times of war. I was also impressed with how craftly Melville manipulated viewer's expectation on will Morin and Marny somehow end up together, by orchestrating an intense sexual tension between them, eventough the things in the end really do not go anywhere with that. Performances by Riva and Belmondo were great and very subtle. Belmondo especially did very well in an uncharacteristic role for him, as an open minded, altruistic and devoted priest. The scene I particularly liked was when Marny tried to ask him if he would marry her if he wasn't a priest and Morin angrily and visibly shaken storms out, without saying a word. Brilliant. I also liked the execution of the final scene; simple and subtle, but yet so moving and powerful.
Leon Morin is a definitely very interesting flick. Eventough very little action happens, the philoshopical thoughts and smart dialogue in it are certainly mesmerizing. I understand it could be boring to some, because of the lack of sentimental moments and stagnating plot, but for Melville fans this is a definite testament to his versatility and skill.
Rating:
Brief Sinopsis: During an occupation of France, young faithless widow (Emmanuelle Riva) encounters a local priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and gradually starts falling in love with him.
Nowadays Melville is generally known for his stylish crime-flicks with impeccably suave characters, one of the being on my avi pick
However this could possibly be his most unusual and experimental work.
At the beggining we are introduced to Marny ( Emmanuelle Riva), also a film's narrator, who is spending most of her time fantasizing about her lesbian crush Sabine, her supervisor. One day she enters a church with intention of playing a joke on local priests. As she randomly chooses a confession room and starts to criticize Catholicism, she's baffled when father Morin( Belmondo) starts engaging in conversation about religion. After a while they develop a friendship and most of the film actually focuses on their theological discussions, which I found to be very profound and interesting, without really pushing certain agenda.
The first thing that striked me was how beautifully shot the film was, consisting of many short cuts, but also providing kind of a dream like scenery. All Melville's films I've seen so far had expectional aesthetics and Leon Morin was no exception. I especially find the zoom in shot to the confession room from the film's beggining to be rather fascinating.
Eventough the film was set during the WW2 it wasn't really about it, rather than exploring the spirituality of people during the times of war. I was also impressed with how craftly Melville manipulated viewer's expectation on will Morin and Marny somehow end up together, by orchestrating an intense sexual tension between them, eventough the things in the end really do not go anywhere with that. Performances by Riva and Belmondo were great and very subtle. Belmondo especially did very well in an uncharacteristic role for him, as an open minded, altruistic and devoted priest. The scene I particularly liked was when Marny tried to ask him if he would marry her if he wasn't a priest and Morin angrily and visibly shaken storms out, without saying a word. Brilliant. I also liked the execution of the final scene; simple and subtle, but yet so moving and powerful.
Leon Morin is a definitely very interesting flick. Eventough very little action happens, the philoshopical thoughts and smart dialogue in it are certainly mesmerizing. I understand it could be boring to some, because of the lack of sentimental moments and stagnating plot, but for Melville fans this is a definite testament to his versatility and skill.
Rating: