Argent, L'

Robert Bresson is regarded by many cinéastes as one of the undisputed masters of film history. I must confess I’ve never acquired a taste for his work, finding it laboriously self-important in its pretension to artistic significance. This, his final work, made when he was 82, constitues no exception to that opinion. At its Cannes Film Festival premiere, Bresson was awarded Best Director and the Grand Prix de Création, which he shared with Andrei Tarkovsky for Nostalghia. The audience were apparently less impressed than the judges and although critical praise has been lavished upon the film since, I must admit that if not inclined to boo what is evidently a sincere effort to portray the cruelty of Fate and the inhumanity of man to man, I cannot enthuse over it.

Based on 'The Forged Note' a story by Leo Tolstoy, it tells the story of the misery that ensues after a couple of feckless spoilt middle class youths pass a forged banknote. A young married blue collar worker gets accused of the crime, goes to prison, his child dies, his wife leaves him and he ends up killing a entire family. Whilst this story may have made sense in the context of the grinding poverty of Tsarist Russia and of the moralistic tradition of 19th century Russian literature, transposed to Bresson’s contemporary Paris it appears anachronistic,didactically forced and, when it comes to the central character, bereft of psychological conviction. The disconnected, schematic way in which the story unfolds with short shrift given to characterisation is only reinforced by Bresson’s characteristic visual stylizations which regularly means shooting the players from restricted angles so that we only see only parts of their bodies. For some, the arbiters of art especially, these strategies are exactly what makes L’Argent shine. If you lie outside that cènacle, however, it probably will be a trying experience. 

DVD Extras: Theatrical trailer 

Available from: Umbrella Entertainment

 

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