Pialat
Now Playing: Maurice Pialat retro at the Wexner Center, playing throughout January
UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN (1987)- this film, adapted from a novel by Georges Bernanos (whose work had been adapted on several previous occasions by Bresson), is a powerful look at the terrible burden of unconditional faith. Gerard Depardieu stars as Donissan, a young priest whose belief in God is so strong that it pushes all other concerns aside, much to the alarm of his advisor, an older and more pragmatic priest (played by Pialat) to whom the film contrasts him. At one point Donissan tells his advisor that he can no longer feels God's love but only the presence of Satan in others (as during the extraordinary extended sequence in which he encounters a horse trader who may be a minion of the devil), yet his belief is so strong that he forges on anyway. It's this combination of extreme faith and singleminded devotion verging on madness that makes Donissan such a compelling figure, and Depardieu's performance doesn't shy away from either aspect of the character, to the point where the best description of him would be the old euphemism "touched." Pialat was a self-admitted atheist, and indeed his portrayal of Catholicism is so evenhanded that it could probably only have been made by someone who wasn't devout, since he never turns Donissan into a hero. The film was an unpopular Palme d'Or winner at Cannes, and indeed Pialat's filmmaking style offers little comfort to a casual viewer- a long narrative aside involving Mouchette (Sandrine Bonnaire) is only connected to the main storyline later on, for example- but it's this uncompromising vision that made the film really work for me, aside from being a vehicle for Depardieu's towering performance. Rating: ***1/2.

GRADUATE FIRST (1979)- this film, on the other hand, is a more gentle and more comedic work, focusing on the lives of a group of friends in their late teens. The advice laid out in the film's title is a key to the film, explaining the rift between the younger generation (who would rather work or hang out than go to school) and their parents (who have hindsight in their favor and realize the necessity of getting one's diploma). In true Pialat fashion- though I've only seen one of his films before tonight so what do I know- the film doesn't take sides in the generation gap, and indeed there are a few adults who try to connect with the youth, though with limited degrees of success. One of them is a kind of strange married man who pursues one of the younger girls, setting up one of the film's most memorable scenes, in which he ends up buying lunch for the entire group of friends, who mostly ignore him. The other is a philosophy teacher who takes a certain interest in the young Elisabeth, though what kind of interest is difficult to say- that he might desire her isn't out of the question, but his often-sound advice seems to come from a good place, and when he congratulates her in the final scene, he sounds completely sincere. Mostly though, the film just follows the kids around as they enjoy their youth and try to put off adulthood, little realizing the ways in which responsibility can sneak up on you, as it does within the film to a number of the characters, notably a girl who decides to get married but isn't quite ready to settle down. Rating: **1/2.

VAN GOGH (1991)- this is the only Pialat I'd seen prior to the retro, and while I certainly admired it last time it only really revealed itself as the magnificent work it is on the big screen. Perhaps the combination of watching it on a small screen and it being a crappy VHS tape was to blame, but this time I was drawn much more strongly into the world of the film, rather than simply focusing on Jacques Dutronc's performance as the titular artist. Much like in UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN, Pialat isn't interested in sanctifying his protagonist here, and as a result the crazy genius we see in most biopics of Van Gogh is replaced by a life-sized figure who is frustrated by his failed attempts to in his life and his art, and resentful that those around him (particularly his brother)don't appreciate what he's doing. The film also references other artists working at the time without making a fuss over it, as when we see Toulouse-Lautrec passed out on a sofa in a brothel, or when Van Gogh refers to Cezanne as "Seize-Anes" ("sixteen asses"). I was also more drawn into Van Gogh's relationship with Marguerite (Alexandra London), the teenage daughter of his patron, which reveals him to be as unconcerned with such worldly matters as proper decorum or even maintaining positive relationships as Father Donissan was in UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN. Even here, the film isn't sentimentalized, a far cry from that sappy 70s song that proclaimed "this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you." Rating: ***1/2.

NAKED CHILDHOOD (1968)- Pialat's debut feature is a spare but nonetheless moving portrait of a young boy who is shuffled from one foster home to another after being abandoned by his parents. Even early on, the filmmaker showed an affinity for a protagonist who was unable to relate in a healthy and socially-acceptable manner to the world around him, and as in many of his later films, he resists delving into an ultimately-reductive psychoanalysis of the character in favor of examining how his various foster parents react to him. Early in the film, we see the young boy living with a family who already have a daughter, and can sense how uneasily he fits with them- his adopted parents are curt with him but more easygoing with their biological child, and the boy's behavior only aggravates matters. After these parents return him to the state, he finds a happier home with an elderly couple who have decided to adopt children now that they're too old to have any themselves. This second family gives the boy more care and attention, and the boy experiences many happy moments with them and especially his new stepmother's eightysomething mother-in-law who lives with them, but even they are flummoxed by his occasional tendency to act out. The film leaves it to the audience to puzzle over the boy's behavior and the possible reasons for it, if indeed there are any. Rating: ***.

POLICE (1985)- Pialat's most obvious attempt at a commercial film is not a particularly satisfying genre piece, but I think it's more interesting as a result. Depardieu again stars, here as the loutish detective Mangin, who's investigating a Tunisian drug ring. As he digs deeper into the case, he comes across a dealer's girlfriend, played by Sophie Marceau, who he first arrests and later, after her release, embarks on a relationship with. Being a Pialat film, the affair is pretty dysfunctional- he has a deep distrust for women, while she is pretty obviously using him- but in spite of this they have a number of tender moments here. It seems that only Pialat was able to channel Depardieu's tendency towards grandiosity into darker characters, and the actor is well-matched by the young Marceau, who uses her own apple-cheeked youthfulness to the character's advantage to disarm the men who surround her, as well as the (largely nonprofessional) cast of rogues. Rating: **1/2.

THE MOUTH AGAPE (1974)- this early Pialat work focuses on a family who comes together to care for the terminally ill mother, but the story isn't told as a weepie. In fact, relatively little is seen of the sick woman as she waits to die, as Pialat turns his camera instead on the other family members- the philandering husband who alternates between caring for his wife and chasing after younger women in town, and her son and his wife, who are having their own marital troubles on top of the mother's illness. One of the most moving scenes comes early, as the son pays a visit to his mother, and the camera holds on them for almost ten minutes as they eat and talk and listen to Mozart, with the scene coming to an abrupt end when the older woman stands up and suddenly stumbles. Between this scene and the mother's death, Pialat allows the storytelling to be dictated by the idea that the rest of the characters are mostly biding their time until she dies, giving this portion of the film a kind of deliberate aimlessness. However, when she dies (offscreen), the film becomes more affecting, with the funeral scene boiled down to a single shot, as the camera moves slowly around the corner of a church and down a line of mourners until it reaches the deceased's immediate family at the front doors. The film ends in two absolutely perfect closing shots, neither of which I'll give away here except to remark on how utterly simple and perfectly-suited they were to the film. Rating: ***.

WE WILL NOT GROW OLD TOGETHER (1972)- it has been said that all of Pialat's films are autobiographical, and this film contains such painful moments that one can see the personal stake he had in this story. Certainly the film's male lead, played by Jean Yanne, is another in a series of impossible Pialat antiheroes, prone to controlling behavior and endlessly frustrated when others don't conform to his agenda. He takes this out most pointedly on his mistress, played by Marlene Jobert, with whom he repeatedly breaks up and then reconciles during the course of the film. Just as THE MOUTH AGAPE frustrates traditional notions of pacing by being about the seemingly endless waiting for a loved one to die, so WE WILL NOT GROW OLD TOGETHER problematizes the kind of narrative structure audiences have grown comfortable with over the years, opting instead for a cyclical storytelling style, finding different variations on the breakup-and-makeup pattern of the central relationship until one of them decides to escape it definitively. Yet despite all the heartbreak and suffering, there are also moments of tenderness between then, my favorite coming right about in the middle of the film, when she caresses his cheek lovingly and the sound (purposely?) cuts out while she says "au revoir." Yanne gives a powerful, uncompromising performance as the surrogate Pialat here (it's not his fault that he looks like Peter Sarsgaard when he squints), and the supporting cast backs him solidly. Rating: ***.

LE GARCU (1995)- Pialat's final film has never gotten a proper release in the U.S., which is a shame since while it's not quite up to par with VAN GOGH or UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN, it's nonetheless one of the better films of his that I've seen. Depardieu once again stars, this time as Gerard, a man who is separated from his wife yet remains a presence in the lives of his wife and young son. "Le Garcu" is a nickname that shows up in several of Pialat's earlier films, always applied to a father figure, and while here Gerard's father is credited under this moniker, it can also be applied to Gerard, who cares for his little boy more than anything. As with all of the filmmaker's work, the protagonist is flawed (his wife is constantly exasperated by his behavior even after he moves out), but LE GARCU is more gentle in tone than most of Pialat's other films, especially the later ones. The highlights of the film are the scenes between Gerard and his son (played by Pialat's son Antoine, a little dynamo), as he relates to the boy largely on the child's level, which neither his ex-wife nor her current beau are able to do. I also liked the complex relationship between Gerard and his wife- she still has affection for him, perhaps even still loves him, but she can't count on him, and Gerard knows this. Definitely a worthy final film for a great and uncompromising filmmaker. Rating: ***.