Les anges du péché

"Les anges du peche" (Angels of sin) is situated in a monastry of the Dominicanesses from Bethany. This order gives women who have been in jail shelter and a second chance. So not al the nuns in this monastry are angels.

Sister Anne Marie however, who has not been in jail but who has joined entirely out of free will, comes close (to being an angel). Anne Marie sees it as her mission to guide one of the most difficult novices, sister Theresa. Sister Theresa has been in jail, but persists that see was innocent. "The innocent cannot forgive" is her motto.

The relationship between the angelic Anne Marie and the frustrated Theresa is the engine of the story. While watching the film I found out that I dit not always symphatize with the angelic one.

Just as Stanley Kubrick, Robert Bresson began his filmcareer as a conventional director, to develop a unique style of his own only after a few films. His debut "Les anges du peche" (1943) together with "Les dames du Bois de Boulogne" (1945) are generally considered as his two conventional movies. This maybe true for "Les anges du peche" as far as the form of the film is considered. "Les anges du peche" has a plot and the characters are played by professional actors. But the theme of the film (guilt, penitence and redemption) is as Bressonian as a theme could be. This theme fully comes into its own during the marvelous ending.

Contrary to what you might expect from a 1943 movie about nuns in a convent, Les Anges du Peche is fast, intense and gripping. The writing (by a Dominican priest, Raymond Bruckberger) is awe-inspiring; nearly every line of dialogue is a cluster of moral and emotional insights. Explored with great wisdom are themes of conformity and nonconformity, selfishness and selflessness, sin and redemption, love, jealousy and bitter resentment, pride and shame.

I am not sure if I have ever seen as forceful a feature debut as Bresson's. Don't overlook it - it is arguably better than his more well-regarded works.

An early work by Bresson, I was lucky enough to see a restored version of the film at Cannes Film Festival this year. It is a fine film, though unfortunately is not so fresh in memory. It is a different sort of film from his later work, lacking both its intense bleakness and its incredible originality. It is nonetheless a very powerful and pure work, which explore the Christian themes of self-sacrifice and redemption with a kind of intense, candid, clear-sighted conviction that one would expect from Bresson. Its story about two women who choose to join a convent, and the different reasons for doing so (one being essentially self-less and the other a selfish who is "on the run")is far more compelling than it might sound. As usual there is a brilliant precision in its film language and narrative, and it conveys its social ambiance and characters (the various nuns mostly) using Bresson's typically stripped-down, modest style which mangages to be engagingly dramatic. For an atheist I also found myself completely engaged by the film's concerns because of the honest, complex and sparing way in which Bresson explored them. He was certainly a very different sort of Christian to most of the ones who come knocking at my door...

Script and dialogues by the director, Raymond Bruckberger and the playwright Jean Giradoux. Accurate and moving description of a Dominican convent (Bruckberger was a Dominican monk). The story centers on the difficulty of setting precise limits between Christian charity and pride. Unfortunately, the script veers needlessly (and distractingly) into overly dramatic territory midway through the movie. This affects negatively the quality of the acting as well. Music is a little too emphatic at times.

On the positive side, well paced direction and excellent cinematography. This is the first feature film by Bresson and there are some inklings of the minimalist style that would mark his later work.

More people should see this beautiful film! It is easily available on amazon.fr (with subtitles), free for streaming on youtube or google video, or for download on the usual sites. It looks great and the print is fine for 1943. The grim corridors of the prison and the foggy streets outside the prison, makes for a suitably noirish contrast to the shining white walls and robes in the convent. Although the professional actors and the suspenseful plot make this an atypical Bresson film, the careful camera framing and the discrete panning produces typically sparse and detailed interiors. The plot may be melodramatic and music a bit intruding at times, but almost every scene is a joy to behold. There are a lot of interesting little touches that show in great detail the daily life and the more mundane side of convent life, clothing regulations, mores etc.

I find that I watch this film more for the aesthetic quality of the individual scenes than for any statement the film as a whole might have. There are also many oddities: For example when Therese knocks upon the convent door after shooting her betrayer, sister Anne Marie is chanting a text from what, one might assume, is a book of prayers. The title, however, reads: "Leo Tolstoj : Krig og fred", which makes it a Norwegian or Danish version of Tolstoy's War and Peace. Strange? But the most impressive and memorable sight in the film for me is the early scene when the submissive sisters lay face down with arms outstretched cross-like on the cold floor. It is almost frightening in its austere beauty, and also very strange for anyone without convent practice. It is the strangeness that does it. Like every Bresson film, I guess.