Bresson's film has an intensity and mysterious beauty that are almost imponderable. And one can appreciate it without being religious oneself. So much has been written about it, about the curé's almost "Passion of Joan of Arc" face of sufferance that nearly out-suffers that of Falconetti in Dreyer's masterpiece. But I want to point out in this brief reflection only one scene, my favorite, though perhaps a minor key reflection of many even nobler and greater scenes in this movie.
It lasts only three minutes and comes about an hour and twenty minutes into the movie. The priest has been making a round of visits and collapses on a county road. He awakens. He is by a cow barn and is being aided by the young girl Seraphita, who in earlier scenes has gratuitously mocked him and played mean little tricks. She found him, she says, when bringing the cows in. She washes his face with pond water. He had vomited, she said, and looked like he had been eating blackberries. (He doesn't yet know that he is suffering from an advanced case of stomach cancer.) Seraphita is generous in her childlike comforting and apologies. "I've said so many awful things about you." Bresson intends her, by gesture and by name, to be the Veronica who came to the assistance of Jesus on his way to the cross, wiping his face of sweat and blood. Veronica's real name was Seraphia. This young girl is Seraphita, the angel-seraph. "Let me take you as far as the road." They rise, she takes his hand. In her other hand she carries a lantern, lighting their way. As they walk forward, the camera tracks backward and creates some haunting moments of pure poetry. Grunenwald's score suggests the liturgical strains of "Parsifal". The curé and Seraphita have their heads slightly bowed. They are expressionless. They are as one.
It is magnificent and sublime. I can think of no other words. A few seconds and the scene is over. It devastates me as no other scene in this miraculous movie does.
It lasts only three minutes and comes about an hour and twenty minutes into the movie. The priest has been making a round of visits and collapses on a county road. He awakens. He is by a cow barn and is being aided by the young girl Seraphita, who in earlier scenes has gratuitously mocked him and played mean little tricks. She found him, she says, when bringing the cows in. She washes his face with pond water. He had vomited, she said, and looked like he had been eating blackberries. (He doesn't yet know that he is suffering from an advanced case of stomach cancer.) Seraphita is generous in her childlike comforting and apologies. "I've said so many awful things about you." Bresson intends her, by gesture and by name, to be the Veronica who came to the assistance of Jesus on his way to the cross, wiping his face of sweat and blood. Veronica's real name was Seraphia. This young girl is Seraphita, the angel-seraph. "Let me take you as far as the road." They rise, she takes his hand. In her other hand she carries a lantern, lighting their way. As they walk forward, the camera tracks backward and creates some haunting moments of pure poetry. Grunenwald's score suggests the liturgical strains of "Parsifal". The curé and Seraphita have their heads slightly bowed. They are expressionless. They are as one.
It is magnificent and sublime. I can think of no other words. A few seconds and the scene is over. It devastates me as no other scene in this miraculous movie does.