La dolorosa

Imagine Marcel Pagnol was a believer:this is the kind of Christian melodrama he could have produced .One of the two movies Grémillon made in Spain.

"La Dolorosa " is really an acquired taste : if like me you are a Grémillon admirer ,be prepared to swallow a lot of sacred music,canticles ,Spanish folk and others ;they sing every ten minutes and the last quarter of the movie is almost entirely sung,which is a little redundant and stodgy.

As he often did,Grémillon tells two stories in parallel (see also "Pattes Blanches" "L'Etrange Madame X" or "Lumière D'Ete"): the first concerns a posh woman in love with both a dreaming painter and a cad. One night,the artist visits the Belle but she is in his rival's arms.The desperate young man decides to become a monk;in the meantime,the buck gets the girl pregnant and he abandons her.Her martyrdom begins with her old mom's death.....

The second story concerns two simple peasant lovers .

Objections remain: the romantic young lead has hardly met the woman he loves when he takes refuge in the convent;and as the girl is rather rich -see the desirable home- ,why does she have to go on the rocky roads of Spain?One must admit she feels very very very guilt ,as much as Mary Magdelene ,and she is in need of a redeemer.

Grémillon's great talkies begin really with "Gueule D'Amour".This one might seem preachy and sanctimonious to an average contemporary viewer.